Madness
by Une Amie Plus
Summary: He has finally realized what she means...but is it too late? Story inspired by Muse
1. Chapter 1

Éponine was running with her little brother Gavroche clutching her hand. Behind her, the voices of her parents echoed in the gap that separated them. She felt she couldn't breath anymore and her brother was in the same conditions so they hid under a bush, their mouths covered so their parents didn't noticed them. She closed her eyes when she felt the steps approaching and the candle lighting up the exact place where they were.

"Where are the stupid girl and the brat?" Madame Thénardier asked very irritated.

Éponine wiped the tears that started to form with the back of her hand. She was only eleven years old and her parents were very abusive to her and her siblings so she decided to run away. Her sister Azelma had stayed behind, claiming there wasn't a better place than their parents' side. Gavroche was too small to decide but he was very close to his sister 'Ponine so she decided to take him with her.

"Why are you crying 'Ponine?" Gavroche whispered in her ear but she just made a sign for him to be quiet.

"It's like the earth swallowed them both," Monsieur Thénardier said.

Éponine remembered the loving parents she once had but the memories were so old that they now had become part of a very cruel dream.

"Where's Azelma? She must know where the hell they are," her mother said once again.

'Zelma had told her parents. There was no doubt. Éponine didn't resent her though for she had said she would do so when she proposed the idea one night after a beating.

They spent that night huddled under that bush. When they woke up, Éponine gave Gavroche some bread she had stolen from her parents. They walked half hidden for a few days, stealing bread and pickpocketing whenever they needed and sleeping huddled together to avoid the cold as much as they could.

The night they arrived in Paris was the coldest of the season. They had walked hungrily through the outskirts of the city without finding anything to eat, not even crumbs. They got to a point in which Gavroche started complaining of fatigue and Éponine sought for a place to sleep very quickly, which she found in a small fenced garden. They both jumped the fence and felt soon asleep.

"Who are you?" A woman asked while looking at them in disbelief.

Éponine woke up to see the sunrise.

"Oh! 'Roche, 'Roche wake up! We must leave 'Roche!" Éponine said alarmed, ignoring the stares of the woman.

" 'Ponine I'm very hungry! I swear I cannot move, my head aches so much!"

The woman had knelt besides them.

"Come on sweethearts, let's go home, it's time for breakfast," She said with a maternal smile while taking Gavroche in her arms. Éponine ran by her side.

They entered to a mansion. It was big and elegant, with sober colors and many rooms. The woman guided them to the living room, where there was a man reading a newspaper.

"Cecile, _ma belle_, who are these two?" The man looked at the kids, skinny and all ragged. Éponine guessed their presence contrasted very much to all the beauty of the house and felt ashamed.

"They are 'Ponine and 'Roche, my dear, our visitors since last night," Cecile said and then winked to Éponine, who was smiling at her.

"Oh, nice to meet you mademoiselle, I'm Jaques Lafévre, the husband of the beautiful lady over there," he said with a bright smile.

"I'm Éponine," She answered, "And he's Gavroche."

Gavroche jumped to Éponine's side and Madame Lafévre was gone for a few minutes. Everyone was quiet and it became very uncomfortable.

"Did you get lost?" Monsieur Lafévre asked.

"No monsieur, we actually don't know where to go," Éponine answered.

"I see…and your parents?" He asked.

"They didn't treat us good, they were bad people to both of us. Also to our sister 'Zelma but she didn't want to come with us and she told them and they searched for us and we had to hide," She answered again.

"Oh," he said before standing up and taking a sip of something red in a glass.

"Breakfast's ready," Madame Lafévre said and they all walked to the dinning room.

"Nana, would you bother in preparing a bath for this kids?" Madame Lafévre asked to the woman that was serving the food.

"Of course Madame," She said and disappeared through a door.

Both kids were bathed after breakfast. Some new clothing appeared for them out of nowhere and they were very grateful for it, although Éponine seemed to enjoy it more than Gavroche. They fell asleep afterwards for their night hadn't been very restful.

From the doorway, Monsieur and Madame Lafévre saw the kids bundled together and sighed. They had been together for twenty years and they couldn't have any children.

"Are you thinking what I am dear?" She asked.

"_Ma belle_ they escaped home, what if their parents are looking for them?" he said.

"Come on my love, look at the state they came in, do you think good parents would let kids live in that state?"

"There are people down the street that don't have better ways to maintain their children, _ma chérie_,"

"Yeah but why would they escape then?"

"That's what I don't know…Éponine said they weren't very well treated,"

"Very well, there you have it,"

In her sleep, Éponine saw the couple looking at her with love and affection and dreamt of the perfect family she had always wanted. She smiled, she would probably be happy now.

* * *

**I want to apologize to all of the readers of this fanfic because it was dreadfully written in all terms...thanks to judybear236 it's getting better, she's helping me with grammar and spelling, which I'm not very good at as you might have seen...thanks for reading/commenting! **


	2. Chapter 2

Éponine, now a nineteen years old woman, walked by the hallways of a small and, surprisingly enough for the époque, mixed art school in the center of Paris. She clutched her music books close to her chest and found herself lost in the memories of the first time her _mama Cecile_ had shown her the wonders of a piano.

Éponine and Gavroche had stayed with the benevolent Lafévres, who offered them the family she had wished for. They were both treated with such a respect and love, that sometimes Éponine felt she couldn't wish for anything, for her life was already very good.

Since arriving at the house, nobody had ever mentioned their past. Éponine had nightmares at times but never discussed the topic and Gavroche, now a thirteen-year-old active boy, didn't remember much about it for he had been just five when the whole episode had occurred and never actually asked anything.

After turning twelve, Éponine had found fascination in music and the piano became her friend and companion. She poured her life into the instrument and played with such a passion that her parents insisted that she should properly learn music in a conservatoire but she since didn't want to go far away from them and Gavroche, she ended up in that little and personalized school where she had learned to compose her own music. Her future in music might not be as bright as if she'd attended a more prestigious academy, but she was still very happy.

Her _papa Jacques_ taught her about the revolution (which he supported) and sometimes her lyrics were inspired by his thoughts. Those lyrics were saved for her times at home or with her "free spirited" friend Grantaire. Grantaire was an art student in that same school who was somehow involved with the revolution.

"Hey 'Ponine!" Grantaire said while approaching her in the hallway.

"Look who I've found…. it's the great 'Taire!" Éponine exclaimed with a smile.

Some of her friends in the academy had told her he was quite a drunk outside school. Also, many people said he wasn't an appropriate company because of his activities regarding the revolution. Others went even further by telling her that once he was at the verge of being expelled from the school because of his activities. Éponine didn't really care.

He was good to her and always respectful. He even went to her house on an occasion because he wanted to draw her for a project and her parents approved him even when he was too drunk to continue drawing and ended up sleeping on her mama's favorite couch. Yes, 'Taire was a good friend and what he did wasn't changing that.

"How were classes today?" he asked and threw away an empty bottle he was holding.

"They were good, I have to learn a song for tomorrow, so I guess I might go home early. What about you? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing at all, why do you ask?"

"Come on 'Taire it's not even noon and you are already drunk?" She said with a shade of disappointment in her voice; she had been subtly trying to get her friend to stop drinking.

"I'm not drunk, _chère amie," _he said just a few seconds before stumbling and falling over.

"Don't tell me that 'Taire!" she said and rolled her eyes.

"I promise I'll quit! But don't give me that look…Come 'Ponine, I had a proposal to make,"

"Tell me," She said coldly while offering him her hand to help him stand up.

He stood up and smiled widely.

"Just if you smile. Don't stare at me," he said with hiccups.

"Tell me 'Taire!" She said impatiently, her face revealing the dimples that showed up when she smiled.

"There they are! I was going to tell you…today it's going to be a really boring afternoon at the café, don't ask me why because I'm always too _busy _to know. It's what my friends all say," Grantaire said.

"You are always too _drunk," _Éponine snapped.

"Alright, whatever you say, "mademoiselle know-it-all". My proposal consisted in telling you whether if you'll like to come with me to the café and sing a song about the revolution. You know, one of those you've composed and showed to me," Grantaire said.

"I don't know 'Taire. You all know about the revolution…I just know what my papa tells me," She said, biting her lip.

"Oh come on, they are quite good! And I might be drunk but my words are honest," he said with a wink.

"Is Marius going to be there?" She asked with a sour expression in her face.

Not long after meeting Grantaire, he had introduced her to Marius once when Marius had accompanied the drunk to search for some artist materials. They had only spoken for thirty minutes but it was enough to cause her thinking about the man and falling in love with him. She didn't see him again but asked Grantaire about him every time she could without appearing to be in despair. She wrote his name in every one of her music books, found herself thinking about him in classes and forgetting her lessons.

It was like that until the infamous day when she walked with her nana to the market and found monsieur Marius with a bright smile on his face. She thought she was going to die of happiness and approached to him. After a trivial conversation, he asked if she knew where could he buy the most beautiful flowers for his lover and fiancé, Cosette.

She felt her world was falling apart and hated the girl immediately. The months she had spent thinking about Marius were nothing compared to the amount of time she now spent crying in his name. Her parents were very worried and not even Gavroche could understand what she was going through. She recovered but it was still very awkward and painful to even think about Marius' presence.

"Probably. He never misses the reunions with _les amis, _although he leaves sooner because he has to visit his fiancé. But why does it matter? Will you accept or not?" Grantaire asked unaware of her feelings for Marius.

"Sure, sure…although I'll probably go with my brother and my nana," She said with a pained expression.

"You have a brother?" He asked surprised.

"Of course! I always mention him to you! And don't you remember when you went home? He was there in the living room with us!" She exclaimed.

" I can hardly even remember that day, _chérie,"_

"You are a crazy drunk and you never listen to me…"She said.

"But you love me that way, _amie_. Now, go home and study your lesson…I'll be there at four and we'll go to the café, taking your nana and the boy," he finished with a grin.

"Bye 'Taire, see you later!" Éponine said.

"Au revoir, 'Ponine," he said while sitting down and taking another bottle of wine from his bag.

* * *

**I really hope you like this one :) Thank you for reading and really, feel free to comment!**


	3. Chapter 3

At four, Éponine changed into a plain white dress with a red lace in the part were the bodice ended and her skirt dropped. It wasn't too pompous and also she found very funny that the colors were those of the French flag. She thought that maybe she could use something blue to make the irony complete, but that would be too much.

She combed her brown hair and tied it in a messy bun that made most of it fall graciously in her back. When she was finally ready, her mama entered to her room to tell her that Grantaire was waiting for her. They went downstairs to the living room were Éponine found a surprisingly sober Grantaire.

"Hey 'Taire! You're sober," She giggled.

"Not a drop of liquor since I left you at the academy and I even slept to be alright for this moment. The things I do for you _amie," _He said with a smile.

"I would love if you did this every day for your chère amie," Éponine answered.

"You wish!" He shot back with a faked glare.

"Alright, it's getting late I guess…but before we get going, I must present you my brother since you don't remember him from your last encounter. Grantaire, this is Gavroche," Éponine said as the boy arrived to the living room, accompanied by their nana.

Gavroche smiled at him. He remembered Grantaire because he assisted very often to the Café Musain to hear Les Amis and he was always scattered in the door of the bar, hugging a bottle of wine.

'Roche was free to go wherever he wanted to and their parents never actually asked him anything. He just had to go to school, which he didn't particularly enjoy but was very good at, and arrive home for dinner, bedtime and any moment their parents summoned him. Any other time, he was free to do what he wanted and he often brought friends from the streets to eat with him. His parents, the most awkward bourgeoisies ever, enjoyed the company of people from the streets and treated them with as much respect as any other person.

So Gavroche spent a lot of time running around in the streets. He knew people and alleys and somehow blended very well in between the gamins, although from a distance people guessed he wasn't like them all. But to the eyes of Les Amis, he wasn't anything else than that, an urchin. They liked him though and they accepted him to listen their debates and ask questions.

Grantaire was always too drunk to recognize any face that appeared at the Café Musain and didn't belong to Les Amis, so he didn't actually recognize Gavroche and they boy wasn't very surprised, even when the night before they have had a long and trivial conversation on schooling.

"Nice to meet you, young boy," Grantaire said while offering him his hand.

"Nice to meet you too, _Ami de l'ABC," _Gavroche answered with a toothy smile.

"Hmm, now that you mention that, I think I've seen you before," Grantaire said and scratched the back of his head.

"Maybe," Gavroched said, almost laughing in his face.

"Well, let's get going," Their nana said and offered Gavroche his jacket, which he refused.

"It's cold, 'Roche," Éponine warned him.

"Bah, it's nothing!" Gavroched answered and crossed his arms.

"Alright let's go," Grantaire finally said, holding the door for the two ladies and Gavroche.

"See you at dinnertime, Monsieur Grantaire included," Madame Lafévre said from the doorway.

They arrived to the café just a few minutes later. Les Amis were all arriving and the nana refused to enter.

"Come on 'Crecia! There's nothing wrong in the Café!" Gavroche insisted.

"I'm sorry monsieur, but I'm not even from this country and they won't kill me here for politics, for which I don't care a bit," She said, "I'll stay here until you finish, then come and we'll go home."

"Sure, 'Crecia," Éponine said while taking her to a bench, "sit here, wait for us…we won't take too long."

She laughed when Grantaire looked at them with a puzzled look.

"Lucrecia's Italian and her family escaped from her country don't ask me why. That's why she has some sort of paranoia," Gavroche explained.

"Jesus she's worse than Joly!" Grantaire exclaimed and Gavroched laughed for he knew Joly but Éponine felt confused.

They entered to the Café and sat in a place were all Les Amis sat and chatted.

"Hello 'Roche," Everyone said.

Éponine wasn't very surprised to know her brother came to this place but she still had to tease him.

"So this is what you do on your evenings?" She asked and winked.

"Well, here's were I got to know why papa loves so much the revolution," Gavroche smiled.

Marius was the first ami that noticed Éponine's presence and he approached to greet her. She contained herself and greeted him cordially but inside she felt like leaving without singing or anything.

Then, Grantaire took her by the arm and presented her to every one of les amis. All of them were very decent and nice to her; she even sat with a few of them and had a proper talk. They were all expectant to hear her song because Grantaire had been so descriptive and he was even sober! They laughed for a while, until 'Taire took her to meet Enjolras.

"And he, _chère amie_, is our leader Enjolras," Grantaire said while doing a gesture to point at a blonde guy who's face was almost invisible inside a book.

He flipped the page without even looking up at them. His face was contracted in neutrality, like a statue. Éponine didn't seem to notice any kind of movement, not even breathing and she even questioned whether if he wasn't actually made or marble.

"So…you're the leader of the revolution?" She tried to start a friendly conversation.

"Yes, I am," He answered coldly.

"I see…May I know what are you reading?" She asked, again trying to talk to him.

He showed the cover of the book without even looking at her or taking his eyes way from his reading, his face always in that same emotionless expression.

"It's Rousseau. You wouldn't understand. Grantaire, just take her to the piano, sing the song and let us start with our debates," He said.

Éponine felt completely insulted and even Grantaire looked at Enjolras with an estranged expression.

"Enjolras I thought you would be…"

"No, you thought wrong, go and let her sing the song but it will weight in your sober conscience that we've lost precious time," He said.

Grantaire took a completely hysteric Éponine away. Her face was red and with a permanent expression of disgust towards the man in front of her.

"God forbids this beast gets France's power in his hands," she muttered under her breath.

She sat down in the piano, caressed it softly. It was quite a fine piano they had there. She practiced a bit and when feeling this new instrument was now an extension of her fingers, she raised her voice.

"Hello…"

Nobody listened, they were all chatting.

"Hey!" She said louder but just a few people turned to look at her.

"HEY ALL OF YOU!" She shouted and everyone hushed and looked at her. She blushed.

"Well, I don't want your attention for me…I just want you to listen to my friend 'Taire here, who will help me with a song I've written and well, he's sober so please!" She said and approached to Grantaire.

"They don't know you sing, do they?" She whispered.

"They don't and I'm quite nervous! Just let me have a drink!"

"No 'Taire, come!"

She sat and began playing, then felt many the stares and saw 'Taires frightened eyes. Smiled reassuringly for him and continued.

_When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city, to see a marching band; he said, "Son when you grow up, will you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?" He said, "Will you defeat them, your demons and all the non believers, the plans that they have made? Because one day, I'll leave you, a phantom, to lead you in the summer, to join the black parade."_

Les Amis looked at Grantaire and Éponine in awe. They didn't know their friend sang and the girl was simply great in the piano and she accompanied Grantaire's voice with her own, which wasn't bad either.

_The anthem won't explain it. _

The lyrics defined very sharply their feelings towards the revolution. Hearing them in Grantaire's voice made even Enjolras to raise his gaze from his book and see the girl laughing while playing the piano. He couldn't believe what he was seeing and he had to close his eyes a few times. She was beauty in full. She was beauty and sang to his cause. He closed his book, missing his page and not even caring about that detail. Enjolras was marveled.

_Do or die, you'll never make me. _

People from the café started joining and paying close attention to what they said. The melody was catchy and people didn't realize that they were actually summarizing what Enjolras took hours to explain every night.

_I'm just a man; I'm not a hero. I'm just a boy who had to sing this song. _

This was one of the few times in which Grantaire showed to his friends that there was more than alcohol in his life and he felt proud for the looks on their faces. It isn't like he loved singing for his passion was plastic arts but he did feel proud, especially when he saw Enjolras' face, he felt completely pleased.

Gavroche, who knew the lyrics by heart because his sister had showed them to him, stood up on a chair and shouted with all the power of his lungs.

_And though you're broken and defeated, you're memory will carry on. _

The final note hit in and Éponine didn't want to keep playing, she loved the piano. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and then saw Grantaire's face; it was of pure joy. She saw at the whole café looking at them and then clapping. She was just smiles, she had played for many people since she first learned to play piano but felt this was the best audience ever.

She was congratulated by all the amis and greeted by many other people from the café that had just been captured by her voice.

"Mademoiselle Éponine, would you like to join us in the debates?" Combeferre asked.

"Oh no, monsieur Combeferre, I've got to go home now, maybe next time, I'll be glad to accompany you all," She said with a smile.

She went to the door and found Gavroche.

"Hey 'Roche are you staying here?"

"Sure! The debates are the best part of all of this! You should stay 'Ponine,"

"Not today, 'Roche, besides 'Crecia is waiting outside. I'll better go for her before she freezes," She said laughing.

"Alright 'Ponine, tell mama I'll get home for dinner,"

"Sure, 'Roche, make sure 'Taire gets home sober enough to have a decent conversation with papa during dinner," Éponine said with a smile.

"I'll try my best," Gavroche answered with a wink.

Once outside, Éponine felt she was being followed. She walked a little faster to the place her nana was seated in because there weren't many people in the street and she felt the steps going faster behind her. She felt somebody grab her hand and she almost screamed but abstained when she heard the person say he wasn't going to do anything to her.

She turned around and it was Enjolras, although she didn't recognize him because she never really saw his face. He was gorgeous. His blonde hair went in all directions and his blue eyes were metallic and piercing. His face was still expressionless but it wasn't frightening, it was solemn and elegant. As a whole, he looked respectable and very handsome. She looked at him in confusion just to hide the surprise his demeanor caused to her.

"Let me introduce myself again, I am Enjolras, the leader of Les Amis de l'ABC," He said.

She looked at him in disbelief. That handsome man couldn't be the beast that felt too important to even say hello to her or something. Her face turned to that of disgust she have had when having him in front of her for the first time.

"I know it was wrong, I mean my behavior…" He tried to correct his mistake in the café but he didn't know how, he hardly ever asked for an apology, especially to people he hadn't met before.

"It wasn't just _wrong, _monsieur, it was horrid. Independently from who someone is, even if it's the most despicable creature on earth, you shouldn't just judge them that way and don't even offer them a greeting," She said.

"Yes…I…" he tried again.

"And for future references, _monsieur, _I have read Rousseau and it has nothing hard to understand," She interrupted him again and he smiled.

"What's so funny?" She asked crossing her arms.

"You are mademoiselle," He said, smiling again.

"I'm not!" She said, not being able to control laughter.

"You see? You are very funny mademoiselle,"

"Monsieur! Making me laugh won't change things," She said while looking away.

"Maybe we could fix that…I invite you to the debate," He said.

"Not today monsieur, but _thank you_," She said.

"Some other day?" He insisted.

"I'll love that," She smiled.

"Now, monsieur, I better get going," She said and gave him a small reverence with the head.

He grabbed her hand and kissed it softly, driven more by an impulse than by anything else and that simple gesture of courtesy made Éponine's stomach flip and head turn. She was starting to feel really awkward.

She turned her back and walked to her nana, which was still waiting for her. While they walked together to their house, they bumped into Marius, who ran frenetically to Cosette's house.

"Monsieur Marius!" Éponine shouted.

"Oh Mademoiselle Éponine! Nice to see you here, you went too early," he said almost out of breath, "It was actually a very good song, I congratulate you!"

"Thanks monsieur. Where are you going?"

"To my Cosette's house," He said, his eyes shinny.

"Oh, is it near?" Éponine asked.

"In the Rue Plumet," He said with a pained expression, for it was far away.

"Goodbye then, monsieur," She said with a smile and he nodded.

She felt actually quite good for it was the first time she didn't feel bad when thinking about Marius and his fiancée. She could just think about Enjolras and how he had made her smile.

"Monsieur Marius," She shouted again before she couldn't see him anymore.

"Yes?" He turned around.

"Would you mind telling your fiancée to please make you very happy?" She asked.

He didn't understand but smiled and turned around. On her part, Éponine could just think about Enjolras and his smile; Enjolras, the marble man of blonde curls; Enjolras who had chased her just to ask for forgiveness. Enjolras, simply Enjolras

* * *

**Hope you like this chapter :) The song, for those who don't recognize the lyrics, is from My Chemical Romance called "Welcome to the Black Parade" and well, I know it's completely different from an average 19th century song and it's not like precisely revolutionary but I'm going to try to incorporate a few lyrics here and there (I made Éponine a musician for a reason ;) Well...also I'm sorry for making this very long but I was too excited to wait another day to start writing the Enjonine part. Thanks A LOT for reading and comment please. If there's something you want to see, a certain song you'll like me to make reference to or something like that, feel really free to make any comment. **

**Also, if you read "Idealément" before or now or if you find interested on it, I'll continue soon with that fanfic too. **

**:) **

**-Cami **


	4. Chapter 4

After the perfect dream she had the night before, Éponine woke up to begin the first few bits of a song.

_I, I can't get this memories out of my mind…but some kind of madness started to evolve._

"I've heard many things you've written and played throughout the years, many harsh lyrics, many things about revolutions and death. But listening to your voice when singing about feelings, it's something amazing my dear," Madame Lafévre said from the doorway of the piano room.

Éponine stopped playing and smiled to her mother as she entered and sat by her side.

"Let's say I woke up somewhat…inspired," she answered, while smiling even wider and looking away.

"Oh but what am I hearing! And where's this inspiration coming from?" her mother asked while patting her head.

Éponine blushed violently and avoided her mother's look. She had never talked about anything close to having feelings for a man with her. To begin with, the only thing close to loving a man was the feelings she developed for Marius, but after the dream she'd had the night before … she now realized that what she felt for him wasn't love.

"Maybe of dreams mama," She said a little disturbed.

"Dreams of someone especial?" Her mother asked.

"What are you saying? Of course it's someone especial like you or papa or 'Roche!" She answered nervously.

"Dear, you know you can trust in me…alright? I saw you yesterday coming home with a huge smile on your face and throughout the dinner you were absent-minded, although your friend Grantaire was here," her mother said.

"And…what are you suggesting?" Éponine bit her lip.

"Do you know, my lovely daughter, that you talk in your sleep?" her mother said with a smirk.

"I don't!"

"You do. Now…will you tell me his name? Or do I have to take a guess?"

"Mama! Don't tease me please," Éponine pleaded and then sighed.

"Fine, I won't say anything else, you'll know when the time is right. I'll just tell you, my mother gave me this same talk when I met your father. I might not know who he is just yet,but love at first sight does exist," her mother smirked again and then winked at her.

Moments later, Éponine was left alone to continue with her piano lessons. She practiced for a while and then continued with her new song but got distracted and ended up with a new funny piece that left her fingers fluently and easily.

Gavroche entered moments later, the sweet music calling his attention.

"Good morning 'Roche," She said as she closed the piano.

"Hello 'Ponine!" He answered and sat in the nearest couch, yawning.

"New lesson?"

"More like an invention 'Roche," She answered with a smile.

"Hey 'Ponine, yesterday I forgot to give you this," He said and handed her a piece of folded paper addressed to "Mademoiselle Éponine" in neat letters.

She opened it and read it carefully.

_Mademoiselle Éponine,_

_Today our debate ends as an absolute success, attended by more people than the amount that assists every day. I must thank you and Grantaire for this, for you both called them with your exceptional melody. Anyways, I can't avoid feeling ashamed; you have helped the cause but in return I just treated you very poorly and feel like our small chat in the alley didn't repair much. Accept this as a personal invitation to join us in our debates tomorrow and letting me repair the damage I've already done with my attitude._

_My respects,_

_J. Enjolras._

Éponine folded the letter and put it in her lap. She looked at Gavroche, who had his arms crossed and looked at her with a grin.

"I didn't know you knew Enjolras," he said.

"I _don't_ know him," she answered.

"You do because there's no other way he would have taken the time to write to you," He said.

"Well, I met them all yesterday at the café, you know but that doesn't mean I'm personally acquainted to this Enjolras," She answered more in a whisper.

"You know what they say about him?" Gavroche asked.

"What?" Éponine asked in returned, one of her eyebrows instantly rose.

"That he's a marble man and he has never been near a woman because he's only interested in the revolution," Gavroche recited what everyone said about the mighty leader.

"Well…so?"

"Well so take care, I don't want you hurting over him too. Don't think I didn't realize you felt in love with somebody that time,"

"Gavroche! Hush!" She said firmly with her face depicting total surprise.

She raised her voice very few times to her brother and this time, it had scared him to death.

"Besides, I won't be hurting over anybody because I have nothing with him and he doesn't even know me. You could read this letter to realize he just wants to apologize for treating me badly yesterday. As you say, very coldly,"

"Sure, sure," Gavroche said, "I'm going today to the debate so if you want me to be your messenger, make up your mind quickly before I forget the offering."

"Alright, before breakfast I'll have the letter I'll want you to take him," She said anxiously, which made him laugh.

"So you aren't acquainted to Enjolras?" he said with a huge grin.

"Just leave 'Roche!"

Since he gave the letter to his little friend Gavroche and asked him to please find the girl, Enjolras just wanted the next day to come. He didn't know why or what he would do in case she did appear, but he was just interested in having her near and listening to him.

The experience in the alley was something totally new for him; it was the first time he had made a girl laugh and even the first time a girl had made him smile. He was too wrapped up in his cause to take his eyes away from it and lose his precious time having stupid conversations with girls.

He didn't want to accept the fact that this girl, Éponine, had caught his eye because she was indeed very pretty but there he was, the so called marble man, the next day, sitting in the café and not paying attention to his friends but to the door.

Grantaire appeared after a while but there was no sign of Éponine and he didn't know if he felt anger or disappointment. He thought she wasn't coming or even sending him a letter or anything at all until Gavroche appeared holding a small envelope with his name.

It had a faint and intoxicating scent of vanilla and it was very simple.

_Monsieur Enjolras,_

_I really don't know why would you feel ashamed since I think our quarrel was fixed in the alley. Don't feel like you owe me something. Indeed, let me tell you that I won't accept any kindness that's moved by such feelings. I am really grateful for the honor of your cordial invitation to the debates, which I am happy to have helped succeed yesterday and I'll love to accompany you soon, although today seems impossible for me since I'll be having a very important lesson in the arts academy you might know of because of your friend Grantaire._

_I have permission to walk to the Luxembourg Gardens for a while after my lessons and, although it might be too late to arrive to the debates, I'll love to enjoy the pleasure of your company. Maybe that way you could explain to me some aspects I didn't __**understand **__of Rousseau's social contract._

_All due respect and my best wishes,_

_Éponine Lafévre._

He smiled for the first time since the event in the alley and saved the letter in his pocket.

"Grantaire," He whispered.

"What?"

"Where's the academy you go to?"

"It's near…why?"

"I'm going there after the debate,"

* * *

**Notice the chapter has a better grammar? well...it's all thanks to judybear236 :) She's great! Thanks for helping me! **


	5. Chapter 5

Enjolras felt really stupid as he opened the doors of the arts academy. It was noon and the streets weren't even crowded but he felt ashamed when he thought that somebody that knew him and respected him as the leader of the revolution would see him entering to that place. He walked clueless through the hallways and felt really small and lost as people looked at him curiously.

Éponine saw him from a distance as he walked to an internal garden the school had. She was seating under a tree, anxiously expecting him and bursting with joy when he showed up. She couldn't suppress a smile but decided to pretend she was reading instead of dumbly waiting.

"So…May I know what are you reading?" Enjolras said with a smile when he found her under the tree.

She looked up, faking surprise.

"It's Rousseau, you wouldn't understand," She said and then winked.

His face dropped a little but she laughed really hard. He sat down next to her and took the book in his hands.

"This…is Shakespeare," he said.

"It is indeed," She said and took away the book from his hands.

"I don't quite like his poetry. It's way too sentimental," he answered and felt the weight of the sinking conversation on his shoulders.

"Thought you weren't coming," she added after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"I couldn't lose this opportunity," he answered in a whisper.

"What opportunity?"

"To meet the woman that helped my cause with a song," he said with a smile and looked at her straightly in the eyes. He couldn't resist thinking she was indeed very beautiful and gifted with a personal enchant that he still couldn't decipher.

"So, how were the debates today?" She asked.

"They were more interesting than many of my best debates before,"

"And How's that?"

"There were new faces, people asking questions and wanting to be informed and counted in for the revolutionary acts," he said proudly.

"Great! I'm very happy that things are taking this way," she congratulated.

"Yes…and I must thank you for that," he said.

"Oh no, don't start monsieur! Come, we should get going to the Luxembourg Gardens," she said as she stood up.

He followed her and soon they were on the revived streets in which masses of people walked from side to side. In order to avoid getting lost in the crowd, Enjolras offered Éponine his arm to hold on to. Her heart skipped at beat as she hugged it with both of her hands and got really closed to him. She looked away; trying that he didn't see the blush on her face but he was taller and saw it anyways, thinking it was actually something very cute. He also liked to feel her close. He fought the impulses to hug her tightly and won; the last time his impulses had betrayed him and he had kissed her hand.

They soon arrived at the Luxembourg and he gasped at how beautiful everything seemed.

"Monsieur Enjolras, don't tell me you've never been here!" Éponine said as she took a seat.

"Of course I've been here Mademoiselle!"

"Then why are you looking at the gardens in marvel? Like if it was your first time in this place?"

"Well, Mademoiselle, I must admit sometimes I cannot…realize the beauty of the things that surround me with such an easiness as my companions," He answered with shame.

"Oh, and I'm guessing it happens to you quite often, doesn't it?"

He blushed a little bit and looked away. She smiled at him and shamelessly put her hand on his cheek, making him face her.

"It's never too late to learn a lesson," she said.

"What lesson are you talking about?" he asked.

"Come with me, let's play a game," she smiled so irresistibly that he couldn't say no, although the voice in his mind told him it was something childish.

Soon, he found himself seating in a desolated part of the garden, on the grass and his back touching Éponine's own back, her eyes covered with a handkerchief she had previously made him put on her.

"So what's this about?" he asked.

"Well…I've come to these gardens since I'm eleven. I ran with my brother and my parents through this place all the time and I could probably name every detail of it to you. But I've been blinded by you, so you'll have to describe every thing you see as beautiful to me," she explained.

"But Éponine I cannot describe anything!" he whined and she put her head in his shoulder, which made him shudder.

"You won't even try? And that way you believe you'll guide a revolution?" She asked with a smile and he laughed.

"At least in the revolution I'll guide, there won't be a fake blind girl wanting me to describe everything to her," he argued.

"But today there is. Imagine if you get to be the leader of the country and someone that helped you when you were starting tells you to do something ridiculous for him or her. Would you refuse?" She asked.

"I think I wouldn't because that someone could just be one of _mes amis,_" he said.

"Well…pretend I'm one of _tes amis," _she said.

"Oh please, I think I don't have to pretend," he said and she smiled again.

"So I am _une amie plus_?"

"No, you are _ma unique amie_," he said and it was real but he just wanted to see her dimples, which appeared later.

"Alright, _mon ami_, let's start," she said.

"How do I start?"

"Simply say something you see that you think it's very beautiful and describe it to me,"

"Alright, I guess I already know what I want to describe but I must stand up to see it better," he said and she nodded, letting her body fall backwards and lying over the grass.

"I see I beautiful gal," he said and felt really awkward when her smile changed into a face of disappointment.

"Alright, continue. Since the girl was never included in the picture I have of this place, you better describe her really good,"

"She's a brunette and it's so petit I could basically call her a midget,"

Éponine laughed hardly, not realizing he was describing her.

"I cannot see her eyes but I bet they are sparkly, probably of soft and shinny brown. Also, there's a smile on her face and it has one dimple in each side, which, let me tell you, it's something very childlike but sweet,"

He walked around Éponine in circles. She was still lying on the grass and her arms were crossed. He started to enjoy the little game and the irony if his character had to show up somewhere.

"Oh, if you could see her, Éponine, you'll see her faces looks so intelligent. She's the kind of girl that, from a first glance, I could say that would understand Rousseau's social contract without a single problem," he smirked.

"Really? That's how you consider people? Whether if they would or wouldn't understand the social contract?" Éponine asked.

"Maybe…Remember I'm patriotic," he reasoned with a smile and still walking around her.

"Yeah, I see you're more patriotic than the flag…so, tell me more about her," Éponine said touching her temples. If she didn't have a handkerchief in her eyes, one of her eyebrows would be at a sky level, her personal signal of irony.

"Let me continue by saying she has really nice hands, long fingers just like a pianist. Indeed, it seems she just came out of an art academy. She has a book in her hand…what is it? Shakespeare?" He said.

"Oh and let me guess, her name starts with an "É" and ends with "Ponine" doesn't it?" She asked, crossing her arms.

"It surely does," He said, kneeling besides her.

She took off her handkerchief, looked at him straightly in the eyes and hit him mockingly with the book a couple of times.

"What was that for? I have never been hit by anybody and then you come just after I consider you my _amie _and hit me with a book!" He exclaimed, faking hurt.

"Told you to describe something pretty to me!" She said standing up and looking at him severely.

"That's what I did, _ma belle amie_," he said shamelessly looking straightly in her eyes, his face recovering the marble like, stiff look that usually it had.

They both looked away and Éponine soon realized it was late. The truth was that she wanted to be alone to think and she considered that maybe he also wanted that. Meanwhile, the atmosphere around them was becoming very dense.

"Mademoiselle Éponine I'm sorry if I disrespected you," Enjolras said.

"Call me Éponine please," she said.

"Éponine, please forgive me. I realize that I'm always committing mistakes when talking to you," he said.

"Don't worry, monsieur, but I think I must leave," she said and turned to leave but he grabbed her hand.

"Please, come to the debates tomorrow and call me Enjolras, not monsieur," he said almost pleading.

"I'll try Mons…Enjolras,"

"If you don't come, I won't consider you my friend anymore," he said winking at her.

"I think, you're blackmailing me," she said.

"Alright then, I'm a blackmailer, hope to see you there," he said.

"I cannot believe the leader of the revolution could be so childish," she answered with a smile and he blushed, remembering what he had just said and recovering, once again his stiff figure.

"I'm sorry Éponine, you don't have to go if you don't want to," he said with that royal air characteristic to him. Éponine felt awkward.

"Goodbye Enjolras, see you there," she said with a smile.

Enjolras stayed behind in the gardens, feeling really awkward, mad and stupid until he realized Éponine had left her Shakespeare book. He took it in his hands and curiously opened it to the "_Love Sonnet number eighteen_", where, below the poem, in big, neat and feminine letters, Éponine had written Enjolras a couple of times.

When he arrived to his flat, Enjolras took the page and looked at it a couple of times, reading the sonnet and curiously imagining the girl writing his name. He sighed and carefully ripped the page from the book and saving it between to shirts.

* * *

**Hello you guys! :D Thank you for reading, commenting and putting this story in favourite/alert. Yesterday was impossible to post the chapter and I know it might not be very good but I just wanted to frame the sort of roller coaster/bipolar relationship these two will have. **

**With love, **

**-Cami **


	6. Chapter 6

The next day after a breakfast in which she hadn't talked too much, Éponine sat down in the huge library of her house and thought, while shivering, about what occurred the day before. She couldn't believe the boldness in her letter, when she invited him to accompany her to the Luxembourg. Also, she had touched his face, smiled at him like a lover. They had played like children and he had flattered her with the best of intentions, his stiff mask fading. To the eyes of anybody that could've seen them, they were lovers, a young couple madly in love.

But then everything sank like a Spanish galleon and she had left, leaving a stiff and again, marble-like Enjolras. This had confused her and she thought that maybe all of that was plain courtesy. Anyways it had made her lost in a sea of feelings.

Éponine stood up and walked to her piano. She started humming and playing a song she had heard a few times on the street. It was nothing pompous or precisely elegant, not a lesson but a fresh and popular song that talked about love. Youths in love with the idea of love and old ladies that had already loved too much sang it together and she felt it was perfect.

_Baby I'm yours…and I'll be yours until the stars fall from the sky. Yours, until the rivers all run dry. In other words, until I die. _

And since coincidences do happen, and indeed it was a popular song, a troubled Enjolras, holding Éponine's book close to his chest and disguised between a few law books, heard the exact same song at the exact same time. It wasn't exactly being singed by the most glorious voice but by a man in the street that was trying to survive with music. He caught the lyrics immediately and they made him tremble all day long, until that same night when he would remember them with her presence.

_Baby I'm yours, and I'll be yours until the sun no longer shines. Yours, until the poets run out of rhymes; in other words until the end of times. _

After she finished singing, Éponine, being were she was, remembered that she had left her Shakespeare's book with Enjolras and almost cried. She prayed that he have had the good sense to take it with him and enough respect for privacy to avoid opening the page of _Sonnet number Eighteen _where she had passionately written his name the day she met him.

She distracted herself by reading another book from a Spanish poet called Calderón de la Barca, who had written beautifully about dreams and one of his poems said, "_Cause life's a dream and dreams, dreams they are," _which she thought very romantic.

A few moments after being consumed by the effervescence of poetry, 'Crecia opened the door and took her tea and sugared cookies, which she knew it was Éponine's favorites.

"Oh nana! My favorite, thank you," Éponine said, faking an enthusiasm she didn't have but wanting to spare explanations.

"I know, I've raised you, don't you remember my child?" 'Crecia said tenderly.

Before serving the Lafévre couple, Lucrecia had worked for the Lecorre family. She raised Cecile Lecorre, which was Madame Lafévres maiden name, and kept serving her even after she got married. She had been serving them for years before Éponine and Gavroche arrived to the house and she had received the children with so much love, Éponine sometimes thought she also deserved to be called mother.

"Of course I do nana," she replied with a sweet smile on her face.

"Will you tell me what's happening to you?" 'Crecia asked with a severe voice.

"Nothing's happening to me nana," Éponine replied.

"Yes, something's happening. You never wake up so early. Also, you didn't even touch your breakfast and didn't talk during the whole morning. Yesterday, you arrived without saying a word to anybody and went directly into your room. And what about singing love songs for the past three days?"

Éponine half frowned and smiled softly. 'Crecia knew her too well.

"Your mother and I already know what's happening to you child," She suddenly said and made Éponine shudder.

"Nana, I'm so troubled!" Éponine then said.

"Is he a revolutionary?" Her mother asked, suddenly entering to the room.

Both ladies, her mother and her nana, stood gazing knowingly at her as she nodded, defeated by both of them.

"I recommend you to go back to that Café today," her mother said.

"Why would that help?" Éponine asked.

"Come on child! You know you want to see him!" 'Crecia exclaimed.

"What are my girls doing?" Asked monsieur Lafévre when he arrived.

He entered to the room, kissed his wife softly on the lips, Éponine on her forehead and exchanged a respectful gaze with 'Crecia while saying "nana" in a pleasant voice.

"We are convincing 'Ponine to go with 'Roche to the Café Musain," answered her mother.

"Why is it?" he asked.

"Her future's there," 'Crecia answered, winking her eye to Éponine, who blushed.

"Yes, see she's in love with the revolution," her mother explained implicitly.

"Oh really? Then it wouldn't harm you to stay here…I guess you know Les Amis de l'ABC right? It's that society of revolutionaries your friend Grantaire belongs to. Tonight I invited them to eat here along with some other friends of mine; we're going to propose something to them," her father exclaimed and Éponine felt she was going to pass out.

"Are they all coming Sir? 'Crecia said very excited; she loved cooking for huge amounts of people.

"No 'Crecia, just five of _Les Amis_ are coming, the others are troubled with university or their personal affairs" he answered.

"How many people will there be?" 'Crecia asked.

"Us five, the five _amis, _and three of my own friends,"

"Alright sir, I'm going to begin the preparations for tonight," 'Crecia said happily.

"Who are they?" Éponine said, her heart pounding frantically.

"Les Amis?" her father asked.

"Yes, their names," Éponine pleaded softly.

"Monsieur Grantaire, Monsieur Courfeyrac, Monsieur Combeferre, Monsieur Joly and the leader, Monsieur Enjolras. Apparently 'Roche knows them," he answered and it made Éponine's floor tremble.

"Excuse me, mama, papa, I'm not feeling well," She said and ran to her room with her head twirling in excitement and shame. She even blushed for a couple of minutes.

Her mother didn't mind too much and even smiled; she knew what was going on. Tonight she would meet the guy that brought warmth to her daughter's heart. But she had something serious to address at the moment.

"What will you propose to them?" Madame Lafévre asked impatiently.

"Nothing to worry," Monsieur Lafévre answered passively while taking a seat. He knew his wife and could guess she was going to scold him. He also smiled for that.

"Remember you have a family now and you are not young like before, you cannot pretend you are going to run like a youth to the battle," she half scolded him, very worried.

"No I am not going to fight dear. I didn't fight when it was my time to do so and now I won't do it. I'm going to help them, _economically _and so will do our friends. I've finally found that they totally believe in this revolution," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"These kids cannot expect to sing in the streets, to do a barricade and public disorder while shouting their ideas, which aren't very nice to the king or anybody in the upper society, without expecting harshness in return. See? They are somewhat unprepared and we're going to financially support this by giving them a resource to buy what they need," he explained.

"You are going to promote violence," she stated contemptuously; she hated violence.

"We're going to help them survive,"

"I just don't want you to be in danger or to put our children in danger," she said, helpless and defeated.

"Everything's alright. There's no way in which I could be in any more danger than in which I already am. Besides, regarding our children, 'Roche and 'Ponine are well aware of this situation and I know they would know what to do," He assured her.

On another place of the city, at the Café Musain, a few of _les amis_ discussed what was going to occur at night.

"Are you sure we should go? I mean, bourgeoisies helping us?" Courfeyrac asked.

"I know them," said Grantaire, who was sober once again, "they're good people."

"Were do you know them from?" Combeferre asked.

"He's the father of a friend of mine," he answered, not wanting to involve Éponine, although he knew they were going to see her there.

"How was his surname once again?" Enjolras asked, doubtful.

"Lafévre," Joly answered.

Lafévre. It made Enjolras wander a bit. Wasn't it Éponine's last name? Hadn't she signed the letter as "Éponine Lafévre"? He was excited and at the same time really felt ridiculous. Why would he be so excited to see Éponine? He then remembered that Shakespeare's poem in which his name was written so passionately and felt something explode inside of him, imagining her writing his name over and over again in several papers and maybe saving them. He wondered if she would ever invite him again to meet her or if he had done wrong in describing her…he was confusing by all of this.

"Hey, 'Roche's here," said Courfeyrac, which droved Enjolras out of his dissertations.

"Hello 'Roche, today we won't have a debate because we are going to have dinner with some people," Joly explained.

"Yes, I know, I came to tell you I'll guide you home," he said with a smile.

"Home?" Everyone, except Grantaire asked.

"Home! Were I live, that's were you're going to eat,"

"What's your father's name?" Enjolras asked.

"Jaques Lafévre," Gavroche answered.

Everyone relaxed a bit afterwards. They knew Gavroche, he had been going to their debates for a long time and nothing wrong had happened so they figured that the same thing would be with his father. Each one of them left to do their own things until the time to go for dinner but before Gavroche left, Enjolras stopped him.

"Do you have a sister?" he asked softly and received a scrutinizing look.

"Maybe," Gavroche answered; he was very protective with 'Ponine.

Enjolras looked at him puzzled and then let him go, trying to convince himself that he wasn't seeing Éponine.

* * *

**Hello you guys! I'm so happy today :) This fanfic has received such a positive response that I feel encouraged to continue. I really have a lot of hope on the chapters to come, a lot of Enjonine and stuff...you'll see ;) I know I'm not making a good job with the lyrics because it's not easy to adapt my musical taste to the 19th century but I hope you are still enjoying this. Thank you all for reading although some chapters might be long and boring, commenting, putting in favorites or alerts. Now I want to take my time to send a really especial thanks to MademoiselleEnjolras have you read anything she's written? It's fantastic! She has encouraged me to continue since about my second day here and it's something I feel like sharing with all of you. **

**-Cami **


	7. Chapter 7

Les Amis reunited at the Café Musain at 8 pm. They were all formally dressed and started to enjoy themselves. Enjolras had taken the Shakespeare book in his jacket, just in case he saw Éponine. He was really hopeful.

Gavroche appeared after a while, with the best of his jackets, pants and shoes. It was the first time they saw him all combed and organized. Without the company of his friends, he looked like a refined boy and _les amis_, showing their most childish sides, didn't miss the opportunity to tease him.

"Let's get going now!" he said, frowning and putting his hands in his pockets.

They all walked to the house, which wasn't incredibly far away but still the way gave them time to talk a bit. Enjolras was lost in his thoughts and didn't say a word until they arrived to the house, were the Lafévre couple was waiting outside, with smiles on their faces.

They hadn't seen their faces before. Indeed, les amis just received a note signed by Monsieur Lafévre inviting them home to discuss some matters of their revolution and asking them to please confirm assistance before the signaled day.

They five amis stood up before the couple, most of them with formal smiles and Enjolras with his signature stiff gestures. The couple looked at them with respect and this gave them a little more confidence. 'Roche was the first to say something.

"Mom, dad, they are five of Les Amis de L'ABC. Grantaire, who you already know, Joly, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Enjolras," he said signaling each one of them.

"Nice to meet you all, messieurs. Let me introduce myself, I'm Jaques Lafévre and this is my beautiful Cecile. I am really ashamed to invite you to my house in such an indecent way but…you see, these days everyone's running and you know it's better to rush important meetings as much as possible," he said apologetically while looking directly at Enjolras, who nodded in agreement.

"Now let's come in before we all freeze here," said Madame Lafévre before opening the door for everyone to enter.

After Enjolras, Gavroche entered and his mother grabbed him by the arm.

"Where's Éponine?" she asked in a whisper. It was loud enough for Enjolras to hear. His heart lit up and it reached his eyes too quickly, he wasn't able to cover it with his stiff signature face and Courfeyrac and Joly started making faces at him.

Éponine had been all day helping 'Crecia prepare everything for dinner. She loved cooking desserts over everything else and enjoyed helping her nana. Time flew in the kitchen and she realized it was too late when les amis knocked at the door.

As soon as she could run to her room without being noticed, Éponine started fixing herself. 'Crecia soon came to her rescue with a purple dress. She also helped her fixing her hair with a white ribbon that let it all loose and simple.

"Everyone's waiting for you at the living room my child," 'Crecia said, which made Éponine's heart shriek.

A for a few seconds the excitement to see Enjolras again mixed with the shame of him having her Shakespeare book, her family being around and everyone looking. It surely wouldn't be the same thing as in the Luxembourg. To begin with, he would have that stiff mask once again and he would just smile at her if nobody else were looking at him.

She rolled her eyes and walked downstairs while les amis, her parents and Gavroche were crossing to the library.

"Messieurs Lapaditte, De Lyon and Brunnes, my friends who also want to discuss matters with you, are arriving soon. Meanwhile, I offer you with the best of intentions an evening with my family," she heard her father say.

Her heart sped up when she recognized Enjolras' voice saying "thank you". She smiled softly and entered to the library a few minutes after the group entered. She approached softly, opening the door calmly to avoid appearing as desperate as she was. She smiled to herself when she caught a glimpse of his blonde curls and then opened the door completely, just when the conversation was starting to take shape.

"Oh 'Ponine! Good you're here!" her mother exclaimed standing up from the sofa.

"Messieurs, this is my daughter, Éponine, although you might already know her. I know Grantaire does," her father said with a smile.

Grantaire stood up.

"Effie!" he said while giving her a hug, she hugged him back for a second and then slapped him playfully.

"Don't call me that 'Taire!" She said and crossed her arms.

"You don't have to be so aggressive!" he said and walked her towards his friends.

"Well…you already know them," he said.

"Sure I do! You're Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Joly and….hummm what is it?" She said playfully.

"Oh I remember Enjolras!" she said winking at him, which caused him to smile softly and look away. Lucky enough, it went all unnoticed by the others.

"Nice to see you again mademoiselle, I hope next time we see us you indeed stay to debate with us," Combeferre said politely and Éponine said to herself that she'll have to go to those debates everyone asked her to go to.

"Surely I'll do. Maybe even tomorrow," she said with a smile.

After laughing with the four amis for a while and throwing some playful looks to Enjolras, who was having a conversation with her parents, his parents' friends arrived and they all passed to the table.

The dinner table could seat precisely twelve people and Enjolras didn't realize this detail or the fact that Éponine wasn't seating until she arrived with a silver tray full of plates and 'Crecia by her side, putting a plate in front of each person.

Enjolras was seated besides the only empty seat and Éponine had to seat by his side. Both of them blushed but he could control it better than she did, which made her blush even more.

They started eating and before the political conversation began, everyone started a trivial conversation with the person they had by their side. Joly and Courfeyrac were laughing with Gavroche while Combeferre was trying to convince M. Lapaditte not to offer wine to Grantaire. M. Lafévre was engaged in a conversation with M. Brunnes andD De Lyon was silently asking some questions to Mme. Lafévre, who laughed softly.

Without even thinking about it but trying not to be seen (easy task because they were precisely at one extreme of the table), Enjolras took Éponine's book from his jacket and passed it to her from under the table. She smiled and nodded at him while muttering a thank you. He smiled back and couldn't avoid a small laugh when he saw her looking for sonnet eighteen.

"Enjolras, don't misinterpret what I'm about to say…but I'm completely sure this page wasn't loose," she whispered.

"What do you mean? Which page?" he said playing dumb.

"This one here!" She said signaling the place in which the page was missing.

"Oh, you mean sonnet number eighteen?" he said.

"Yes, exactly!" She said blushing deeply.

"It belonged to me, so I took it," he answered shamelessly and her eyes almost jumped from their place. Her face was red and he laughed hardly, drawing everyone's attention.

"Sorry," he mused and everyone reengaged their conversations.

"What do you mean it belonged to you?" she asked.

"Yes, dear Éponine, what has your name belongs to you, doesn't it?" he pointed out.

"I guess but you cannot just take it without even saying to the former owner," she said.

"So, mademoiselle, you're admitting it is indeed mine," he said, articulating every word with a smile and she blushed instantly.

"No! I mean yes…I guess…did you even read it?" she asked out of nowhere.

"And now you're implying it was a secret message? Which, consequently, means you left your book in the gardens for a reason," he teased, "I didn't know your intentions were so…dark."

"No! Anyways, why would you even care in taking a _sentimental _piece of Shakespeare with your name in it?" She asked, trying to challenge him as he was doing with her and leaving him speechless for a moment.

When he recovered his speech, M. Lafévre was calling him to start discussing and he couldn't answer to her. Politics consumed him so much he didn't realize she stood up and took the plate from him to fetch desserts and coffee.

"Well, amis, we summoned you here tonight for a punctual thing we wanted to discuss, which is your economical support for the upcoming revolution," M. Lafévre said.

"We have none. What we can gather from our own pockets and our determination is what maintains this revolution alive," Courfeyrac said.

"Exactly. But see, with all due respect, you cannot expect a country to change from a revolution that comes out of crumbs," M. Lapaditte said.

"And we're not only talking about armament. We're talking about ammunition, food, bandages…anything you need to maintain your revolution for the time needed to make the country better," M. Brunnes said.

"We are students and that's the only way we can get the money to support our ideas," Enjolras pointed out.

"Well, not anymore. We've been noticed that General Lemarque is at the verge of dying and you know that's the only thing men cannot avoid, death. We also know the day he dies, that's the day you'll start your revolution and we want to offer our unconditional economical support," M. Lafévre said as the eyes of les amis widened.

"Are you serious messieurs?" Combeferre asked.

"Of course we are," M. De Lyon said.

"But…could we ask your motivation to do this?" asked Grantaire and Enjolras nodded.

"Speaking for myself, I'm in a privileged situation as opposed to the great majority of French people. My opportunity to fight blew away a long time ago and for a long time I regretted it with all my heart. Now, the opportunity presents again but I'm too old to fight and still if I could, I have a family to take care of," M. Lafévre said.

"It's the same story with me," Agreed M. De Lyon.

"Well messieurs, we cannot be more honored," said Enjolras after thinking for a while, "might we know what do you want in exchange?"

"Democracy and freedom for France," M. Lapaditte said immediately and les amis looked at him with complacency.

After a while, the trivial conversations continued and Enjolras looked again at Éponine.

"Your father, he's a honorable monsieur," he said.

"Thank you Enjolras. He really is. And so is my mother. You cannot imagine everything they've done for me and 'Roche," she said with an absent smile like thinking something completely different. Then, she looked at him.

"Would you at least like…copy the poem and bring it back to me tomorrow?" She asked a bit embarrassed.

"Maybe….if I'm too tired I would lend you the keys to my flat and make you search for it, to see if maybe you help me organize my things a bit," he played around.

"Don't even think about it…I've read the work of many feminists!" she said.

"Oh the girl reads Rousseau and now feminists! What's this?" He said with a playful smile, "by the way, who did this mousse? It's heavenly!"

"I did it! Yes, I've read Marie Wollstoncraft and Olympe de Gouges and many other women…maybe if Rousseau…."

"You did? Really? It's great," he said sincerely.

"And don't criticize Rousseau," he added.

"If we ever talk about politics I won't talk about them, because if you tell me you like Robespierre I'll most likely stab you with a knife," she laughed.

"I don't like him…. too much," he winked at her and she blushed, "I really hope we get to talk about politics properly,"

"I really hope we get to talk about other things too…like why don't you tell me the real reason for you to take my sonnet," she said and he sighed.

Éponine started talking to les amis and Enjolras just looked at her questioningly. He hadn't felt anything for many girls before and those that had caught his eye disenchanted him immediately with their blatant stupidity. But Éponine was different, beautiful and her determination made him want to kneel in front of her. He remembered that song he had heard that morning and it made him want to cry in disbelief. Was he in love with her? Really, from everything he could be thinking about now that his cause had a stable support…. he thought about love?

He thought for the rest of the dinner until they had to go, fighting with himself and trying to avoid looking at Éponine. It made him mad; he was totally fine with himself and his cause until she came singing and made his heart stop. But just when he said goodbye to her and saw her in the eyes, tinted with the brightness of mischievousness, he felt lost.

She handed him a small piece of paper she had managed to write in one of her trips from the kitchen to the dinning room and he saved it in his pocket, caressing it every few minutes to check if it was still there.

When he opened it and read it, he smiled again.

Enjolras,

I know it might not be proper to ask you this but, since our…_friendship_ is everything but straightly proper, I don't mind too much asking. Anyways, would you mind sending me a couple of letters? I know it might sound awkward but besides Grantaire (who's very drunk most of the times to write to me anyways) I don't have many friends…not really much at all and since you and I are friends now, I would like to hear from you more often.

My regards,

Éponine.

He thought that it might be the amount of wine he had in his blood that made him so romantic and pathetic but maybe he was completely lost but surely Éponine was lost with him, and maybe that was everything he needed

* * *

**Way to go! Thanks for reading and also for the amazing comments I've received :) Next chapter...I'm still thinking but want it to be something umm...especial, you'll see ;) **


	8. Chapter 8

Enjolras felt asleep with the letter in his hand, thinking about Éponine. When he ran of ideas he thought of something else that reminded of her and he was surprised by so much time he spent thinking about her. She was also present in his dreams, which was why he woke up with a smile and so late; he was about to miss class by ten minutes and usually he was already at the faculty half an hour before.

But he took his time to write to her and send the letter quickly, arriving at class twenty-five minutes later and with a lover's smile. It was the first time he just sat without paying attention to class and afterwards he scolded himself for that but at the moment he just gazed outside, thinking whether if Éponine had received his letter.

_I, I tried so hard to let you go but some kind of madness is swallowing me whole. _

Éponine was at home, very concentrated in playing the piano and continuing the song she had started the day after she met Enjolras when 'Crecia appeared at the doorway, waving something in her direction.

"My child! My child! Something arrived for you!" She said while giving the letter to her.

When Éponine saw the handwriting, she blushed intensely and wrote a sentence on top of the papers she had in front of her piano, were she had written the lyrics to Enjolras' song: _Mon cœur s'ouvre à sa voix_. She sighed and opened the letter with a certain hope, like she was expecting it to say something specific.

Éponine,

Is our friendship inappropriate? As far as I'm concerned, we're friends like any other two people would be and if we are not, I still appreciate it this way better. Well, you asked me to write to you and I guess you hope that this letter has many things about me but that's not the case. To begin with, my life is immortally boring and second of all, now I'm about to go to class and won't have time to tell you anything. Anyways, I would love to enjoy of your company today at 9:00 a.m. would it be possible for you?

If it is, let's meet at the elephant that's located in front of _La Bastille, _if not, please be gentle with me and send someone carrying your message.

My respects,

Enjolras

Éponine's response was simple: she checked the clock. She started panicking as she saw it was almost 8:30 and she wasn't ready yet. She ran with laughter to her room and smiled while dressing up with a simple pink dress. She did her hair in a complicated braid that didn't take her much time for she was used to it and put a lot of perfume on.

"Young lady, where are you going?" asked her mother as she crossed the living room in a hurry.

"I'll go to meet a friend of mine," she answered, trying not to enter in much detail.

Her mother looked at her with a smile and she blushed.

"Just tell him I say hi. Please make sure to be back by lunch time and take care," her mother said and kissed her in the cheek.

Éponine smiled and ran because it was almost nine.

At the elephant, Enjolras was casually standing and looking around to see if she was among the people. When the clock struck nine, he started to panic and enter in despair. Nobody had ever made him wait and he hated that. He had once again that stiff mask that Éponine hated but he considered necessary and he decided he would give her fifteen minutes or he would leave.

But she did appear, running and almost out of breath, five minutes past nine, which made him feel extremely guilty for being so stupid. Before she saw him, she stood up a few meters away from the elephant and started talking with some beggar kids that ran along her side.

Enjolras saw this and smiled. He walked towards the girl because he figured out she wouldn't see him at all and gently touched her shoulder, which made her cringe and turn around.

"Enjolras!" she mused happily while jumping to his arms that received her as though they had always waited for her.

They hugged for a moment, not wanting to be separated but the laughter of the kids disrupted them and they realized how awkward the situation was. They separated quickly and she cleared her throat.

"So how where your classes today?" she asked.

"They were very good," he answered, not noticing the kids were still looking at them.

"Mademoiselle Éponine?" one of the girls asked shyly.

"Yes?" she answered.

"Is he your boyfriend?" she asked and all the kids laughed.

Éponine and Enjolras looked at each other, their eyes widened, a playful smile trying to hide among their faces.

"No, chèrie, he's just a good friend of mine," she answered before Enjolras could say anything.

"Why isn't she your girlfriend sir? Don't you think Éponine is pretty?" another girl asked while pulling from Enjolras' sleeve.

"Of course she's pretty…it's just things from adults," he said playfully while looking directly in the eyes.

"But you'll look like such a cute couple!" another girl said with a smile.

The boys were laughing but then looked at the girls in disgust.

"Don't pay attention to them sir, girls are stupid," the oldest kid said.

"Oh I wouldn't say that in front of her," Enjolras said while pointing at Éponine.

"We're leaving…take care kids, see you later, alright?" Éponine said with a smile and took Enjolras by his arm.

"So you know them?" he asked when they were far enough.

"The kids? They're my friends, beggars…very imprudent as you can see. I know them since they started hanging out near the academy," She answered.

"They are just kids, my cause…somehow relates them intimately," he stated.

"Is there any especial reason for wanting me to come here?" she asked.

"Yes, I wanted to give you this," he said while putting a hand in his pocket and taking out the Shakespeare page with his name in it, "it wasn't right to take it,"

Éponine saw it and blushed deeply. She folded it and put it in his pocket again.

"Just keep it," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, I really believed it belongs to me," he said and she laughed in response.

"This is amazing," she said suddenly, when seeing the place they had arrived to.

They were in front of one of the many gardens in France that was made into a maze. It was full of exotic and colorful flowers and it was completely alone in an almost desolate street.

"It really is, I came here when I was little and felt like being alone. My parents took hours to find me," he answered mischievously.

They took different but parallel ways and walked while talking but not seeing each other.

"Enjolras why are you always so serious?" Éponine asked out of nowhere.

"It's weird that you, from everyone in the whole world, ask me that. I'm not serious with you am I?" he asked sounding really amused.

"Oh you aren't indeed, but the thing is…I've seen you when your friends are around. You're stiff, just like the day we met, don't you remember?" she said playfully.

"Of course I do, I treated you very badly, you remember that part?" he asked somehow bemused.

"Let's omit that. I had the greatest of times singing to les amis," she said.

"Yeah…you lie, don't tell me you, mademoiselle the pianist, haven't played to noble crowds in pompous theaters before," he said and she imagined he was either rolling his eyes or putting once again his stiff mask.

"I've played to many people but nothing really filled me so much until I played to you guys…I felt proud of what I did, like I do when I play to my parents or when Gavroche learns the lyrics of my songs," she said.

"That's good to know. You're always invited to go back and sing again," he said.

"Well in that case you're invited to see my classes someday,"

"You're inviting me to your classes?" he asked mockingly.

"I do," she answered, "what's the problem?"

"Well…it's like I invited you to university. I don't know what you would see there, it's just the teacher talking and us writing everything and complaining for the assignments."

"I know what you would see, me alone in a huge piano room with old Madame Christine hitting me in the back with her cane whenever I don't sit up straight or bashing me whenever I mess up on a lesson," she said and he laughed.

"I'll like to see that someday. It seems worse than university," he said.

"And in university you learn something new everyday," she simply said, smiling widely, "I wanted to go to university."

"What would've you like to study?" he asked.

"Maybe law," she said and laughed quietly.

"Hey Enjolras…have you ever played hide and seek?" she asked him, once again out of nowhere.

"I did when I was a kid," he answered.

"I was thinking this is a good place to play, like kids," she said and he thought it was ridiculous but once again, didn't mind playing with her.

"One…two…three, I'm going for you Éponine," he said as she ran all the way around.

He ran listening to her giggles and smiled. He didn't mind he was playing as a kid. Éponine was running and laughing and he followed her, like a madman.

Suddenly, Éponine had the brilliant idea to scare her companion a little bit and make him lost. She took of her shoes and left each one of them a little bit apart. She hid behind a big wall of green trees that didn't have an end and screamed, "Help me" on the top of her lungs.

Enjolras' eyes widened and kept running to find Eponine's ballet flats thrown on one place and her embroidered handkerchief somewhere else. He was scared indeed and thought that maybe something had happened to her.

"Éponine!" he shouted.

"Where are you Éponine?" he said and she giggled for herself, feeling like such a devil.

He heard, though and ran straightly where she was, his face converted into that stiff mask, his eyes shooting daggers and his face almost on fire. He walked slowly and Éponine backed up until her back touched a tree and she couldn't back up anymore. Enjolras kept walking straightly until their faces were separated by centimeters.

"Don't do that to me…never again!" he said stressing every word and taking her shoulders.

"Enjolras you're hurting me," Éponine said calmly and he took his arms away.

Out of an impulse that bubbled since the first time he saw her, caressed Éponine's cheek with his hand and closed the gap between his foreheads. They could feel each other's breathing and it felt heartwarming for both of them. He hugged her softly and she put her head in his shoulder.

"Just never do that again Éponine," he said tenderly and she nodded, her eyes closed and not wanting to ever break apart.

Both of their hearts were beating faster than ever and Enjolras was the one who broke the hug apart, running away with a bright smile on his face. Éponine stood up straighter and looked at him coming back with her shoes. She laughed as he offered them to her.

"Come on Éponine…you cannot be barefoot!" he said and smile as she knelt shamelessly to put on her ballet flats.

When Éponine stood up, she saw for a split second the vague silhouette of a decadent version of her mother, with no teeth, very dirty and with a face of hatred towards her.

Éponine started crying.

"What's wrong with you Éponine?" he asked her when he saw her tears.

"Nothing's wrong, Enjolras, everything's fine. I must get going, I'm sorry," she said running away to her house.

Once again Enjolras stood there, alone as she left. This time, he was bewildered because he didn't know if he had done something wrong. That was until he saw the woman's face, which was still looking at him. Her image gave he shudders and he asked himself whether she had something to do with Éponine.

Enjolras was confused and lost, thinking of that awkward episode with Éponine and visualizing something proper to ask her in the next letter until the debate that night, were she appeared, radiant as ever and with a smile on her face that made him feel completely intimidated.

* * *

**And that was chapter 8! Thanks a lot for reading! hahaha I know many of you might be thinking like...oh so freaking close! but don't worry, there will be something pretty especial on the next chapter ;) you'll see! **

**-Cami **


	9. Chapter 9

The Thénardiers started losing their small fortune a lot of time before Éponine and Gavroche escaped but total bankruptcy came just a few months after, when they lost the inn and had to move to Paris.

Once in the city, everything was even more chaotic for the family. Madame Thénardier gave birth to two more babies she wasn't willing to take care of (not that she actually had the means to do so, anyways). One day, she took them to a "walk" to the park and left them there, to their luck.

Azelma, the only daughter she had left, ended up following Éponine and Gavroche's example and ran away to America with a boy that had promised her some happiness and her husband became the drunk everyone thought he was going to be since his childhood.

Madame Thénardier became a decrepit woman. She often had hallucinations due to hunger and slept very little. Most of the times she would do a bundle out of rags and carry it as though it was a baby while standing near church, people assumed she was crazy and gave her charity.

But that day, when she heard Enjolras shouting for Éponine and indeed saw how her daughter had grown to be a beautiful woman and was probably betrothed to that handsome man that was by her side, she felt shame for the first time in many years.

But that shame didn't even show on her outside for she could only see her daughter with a profound hate that stayed still even after she noticed Éponine looked at her and ran away. She followed her, determined to talk to her.

Just in the moment in which Éponine felt she was safe, Madame Thénardier muttered something and she turned around, begging to God to send a bunch of people to the streets so she could escape.

"Look at you…such a civilized gal," the woman spat.

"I'm sorry I cannot say the same of you," Éponine said with the same fury.

"Alright, well played,"

"What do you want?" Éponine demanded when Madame Thénardier started to fall into digression.

"Can't I have a conversation with my daughter?" she said.

"I have a mother and it's not you. Do you want money? I can give you fifteen francs, it's all I carry with me, but leave me alone for once," Éponine said coldly and Madame Thénardier felt, for the second time, ashamed.

"You…wouldn't believe I came here for fifteen francs, do you?" she said very moved.

"On other times, you proposed to sell _me_ by less than that," Éponine answered and rolled her eyes.

"That was just teasing child," Mme. Thénardier said.

"What happened to you anyways?" Éponine asked.

"Many things," she said defeated.

Éponine tried to say something but was interrupted by her.

"Listen…I won't bother you or Gavroche. I just wanted to see you and for you to see I'm still alive," she said.

Éponine sighed in relief and handed the money to Madame Thénardier.

"I'm sorry for not having anything else to give you and goodbye," she said and turned around.

Once at home, she didn't talk to anybody at lunch. She sat and smiled at Gavroche. She felt relieved and at the same time in a state of confusion that made her wonder what would happen if she saw the Thénardiers again.

She quickly forgot about them as she remembered that moment she had with Enjolras. She blushed alone and smiled softly to herself as the memories replied in her head. They had been so close to each other; she could still feel his breath over her face. She touched her forehead a couple of times, just were his had been.

"Hey, 'Ponine, today you're free from classes. Will you accompany me to the debates?" Gavroche asked.

"Sure, today I will," Éponine answered.

Soon she found herself in front of her piano, continuing with those lyrics for Enjolras' song.

_And now, I need to know is this real love or is it just madness, keeping us afloat? _

She smiled. Would it be real love? It was so quick…so rushed and he saw her as a friend, he wrote it on the letter. She felt bemused and at the same time, some sort of fascination rushed through her body; she would have to decipher his emotions beyond the marble-like features, behind every smile, behind every word…. every hug or caress on the cheek.

Her dreams placed her between the middle of a fortunate mixture between the solemnest compasses of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and the Debussy's "Clair de Lune" and she continued until a diverting end with Mozart's "Ode to Joy".

By the time Gavroche arrived to take her to the debates, the whole house had listened to a whole concert. She had played for so long while lost in her thoughts that her fingers ached, which was something new after eight years of piano playing.

'Roche was excited about having her at the debates and talked all the way about them. She didn't tell him that beyond the topic, she was interested in seeing the leader who probably wouldn't spare a look in her; she could guess he would be totally consumed into the debates.

They arrived first and were greeted by Marius and Joly.

"How's Mademoiselle Cosette?" Éponine asked to start a conversation.

"Oh, please don't ask him, he'll start talking about her nonstop," Joly teased and they all smiled.

"By the way, Mademoiselle Éponine, don't take off your jacket because this place is full of sickness," Joly added and Éponine looked at him as an eyebrow rose.

"He's a doctor…a hypochondriac doctor," Marius explained and Éponine laughed.

"So that's why 'Crecia is worst than him?" She said to Gavroche, who nodded and both men looked at them as for an explanation.

" 'Crecia's our paranoiac nana," Gavroche explained and then ran to greet his little friends who arrived eventually.

Éponine was left with Marius and Joly.

"HELLO…EFFIE!" a completely drunk Grantaire shouted.

"Oh my God it's just 4:00 p.m.! Someone please take the bottle away from 'Taire!" she commanded until Combeferre arrived and took the bottle off of Grantaire's hand.

People started arriving and the rest of les amis greeted her. They were familiarized with her, especially after her father and his friends started helping them economically.

"Will you sing to us today?" Bahorel asked.

"No! haha today I'm here to listen all of you," she said.

What a surprise did Enjolras feel when he descended from the second floor to start the debate and saw Éponine seated on the first row. He felt his heart was about to explode in his chest. Contrary to what he would've liked, he walked up to her and greeted her formally, kissing her hand, which was something Éponine expected him to do.

The debates started and Enjolras had the word first. Smirking to Éponine, he walked to the front and started talking.

"Hello fellow revolutionaries and always welcomed newcomers. Today I want to start with something different. You must know the son and daughter of the major benefactor of this revolution are present and in name of Les Amis de L'ABC, I would like her, who's the older of them, to have the first say in this debate," he said and sat down while everyone started encouraging Éponine to stand up, since she was frozen in her place.

Finally, Grantaire stood up and stumbling, took her to the front. She didn't know what to say so she started improvising.

"Hello…I'm new here so please don't judge my lack of communication skills. To begin with, I want to congratulate you all for being here. It takes a painful rush of blood to the head to realize the situation France is going through and another one even more painful to decide to fight for the true freedom of everyone and to destroy the supremacy of those who don't deserve it," she said and then sat down after a round of applauses.

Afterwards, it just became a bunch on intertwined screams where the words "bourgeoisie", "revolution", "barricade", "General Lamarque" and others were constantly said. Even Gavroche was screaming and Éponine was consternated until the end, were everyone joined in a song that seemed to come from the heart.

When everything ended and the people started leaving and almost all of les amis were too drunk to recognize who was who, Éponine called Gavroche.

"What do you do afterwards?" she asked.

"I don't know you, dear sister, but I'm staying with my friends, they'll run around," he said excitedly.

"I'll go home. You take care," she said maternally.

"Sure, I will _mom,"_ he said with a mocking smile before running with his friends.

"Hey there, you were excellent," Enjolras said to her.

"Oh _you were_ excellent, I didn't even know what was I saying. I can see you did it to embarrass me!" she said crossing her arms.

"I sure didn't!" he claimed.

"Still you owe me one," she answered playfully.

"Would it make it better if I accompanied you home?" he asked.

"Maybe…" she answered and winked at him.

"Well I propose something then, why don't I invite you to a patisserie and then I accompany you home? Would that make it better?" he asked.

"It would but just if you let me invite you to the patisserie," she said.

"No way, Mademoiselle I read Olympe de Gouges, let's go," he said opening the door for her and smiling.

They arrived to a very small place near Éponine's house. They sat in the only empty place and waited until the waitress, an old maternal woman who happened to know Enjolras, came to them.

"Oh 'Jolras! Long time not see! How are you?" she said with a very thin voice.

"I'm fine Madame Christophe," he said, "I didn't have much time to come since I engaged in a more serious political cause when I restarted university but now that I come, I want to introduce you to Éponine."

"Nice to meet you sweetheart," she said while revealing an empty smile with a bunch of missing teeth.

"Nice to me you too Madame," Éponine answered politely.

"How ugly of you! After you came every day, you didn't even mention anything of your wedding!" Madame Christophe said, addressing to Enjolras, who looked at her puzzled.

"What wedding?" he said.

"Yours with the girl," she said pointing at Éponine, who blushed and looked away, trying not to laugh.

"No…"he said, also blushing.

"Oh…you aren't married," she said and both Éponine and Enjolras nodded.

"Not even engaged?" she asked.

"Not at all," Enjolras clarified and the woman furrowed her eyebrows.

"Hmm…but you look so much in love!" she said, "Well, I've talked too much. Let me bring you the day's special pastry. The house invites for this inconvenient."

"I wonder why everyone thinks we're a couple," Enjolras said after an uncomfortable silence.

"Well…what would you think if you came here and you saw me with another friend, like Grantaire?" Éponine asked.

"I would probably be jealous of him," Enjolras said shamelessly.

"No, you wouldn't…you would probably take him aside for a while before the debates of the day and tell him to stop fooling around during the preparations to the revolution in that tone of yours, like that one you used today to say "don't let the wine reach your heads!" or something similar," she said.

They served them their pastries and hot chocolate and started eating.

"This is delicious Enjolras!" Éponine exclaimed.

"I know, it's a good…came here since I started studying," he said with a smile.

"So, continuing with what you were saying, you say I would scold Grantaire," Enjolras asked in a voice Éponine considered very seductive.

"Yes,"

"So I'm like an old man?" he said.

"Well, with me you're pretty juvenile but with them you're like a big father," she answered.

"So I'm fake?" he asked.

"You're reserved and that's not bad," she answered.

"Good answer," he said, making Éponine laugh.

They concentrated in eating for a while and then Enjolras couldn't keep his curiosity anymore.

"Éponine…" he began.

"I know you're going to ask me about this morning. I'm very sorry to have left you that way, especially after…." She wanted to continue but felt embarrassed and refrained.

"After what? Éponine…I don't care about what happened, I had a great time this morning, it was simple and I laughed a lot. But I have just one question," Enjolras said.

"What is it?"

"Who's the woman? Does she have something to do with you?" he asked.

"Please…tell me the truth, Éponine," he said after she didn't answer.

"She's part of my past, maybe I'll tell about it to you some other day," she said.

He didn't insist too much because he saw Éponine was getting nervous and her eyes turned watery so he smiled at her and took her hand softly.

"You can trust in me, 'Ponine," he said, surprised that the nickname slipped from his mouth and she smiled.

"Thank you, Enjolras," she said.

"Friendships nowadays…then they get mad when one asks if they aren't a couple," they heard Madame Christophe mutter and they both laughed.

After leaving the patisserie, the walked down the street very close. Éponine took his hand a couple of times with the excuse she didn't want to get lost and he smiled at her, giving a squeeze to her hand.

When they were almost at Éponine's house, Enjolras guided her to a lonely alley saying it was a shortcut. Éponine walked in front of him worried because she didn't know the way.

"I trust you won't take me to my death in a dark and lonesome alley," she said mockingly and he gave her a reassuring smile that made her dizzy.

At one point, Éponine almost felt down and he took her in his arms without even thinking. She stood up and he looked straight to her eyes, once again they ended up in the position were he was close to her, their foreheads met once again.

"You want to know…the only thing I regret from this morning?" he asked her in a whisper.

"What do you regret?" she asked while closing her eyes.

"Not doing what I am about to do," he said and before she could answer took her face in both of his hands and closed the gap between their lips.

They kissed for what seemed hours but it was glorious to both of them. Éponine took her hands and wrapped his neck with them, caressing the blonde curls that felt and they kissed and kissed and continued kissing until their lungs asked for air and still then, they continued close together and hugged tightly, smiling.

Enjolras looked Éponine in the eyes once again and her response, with a small laugh, was kissing him again. He loved her lips even more than the first time.

* * *

**Hey there! I personally was expecting this last part since the beginning 3 haha Thanks for reading and commenting :) **

**-Cami **


	10. Chapter 10

Éponine smiled as she received a letter the next morning. She was remembering for the thousandth time those glorious moments in the alley outside her house when 'Crecia came with a fat envelope that said her name with Enjolras' distinctive letter and she smiled, throwing herself to her bed with a sigh.

Enjolras and Éponine kissed twice, the first time he had given the first step and the second time, she had answered him with tenderness and an urgency she had never felt before. Afterwards, they stayed there, hugged. She searched for warmth in his chest and his arms molded perfectly in her back; they felt complete.

"Enjolras,"

She wanted to spill all of her feelings at once, which wasn't a smart thing to do but she felt like it was right at the moment. She knew Enjolras wouldn't open his heart quite often and she had to take advantage of this opportunity.

But he answered simply putting his fingers in her lips, caressing the lips that now belonged to him.

"Shh…don't say anything, my dear 'Ponine," he said softly to her ear and she closed her eyes.

"It's the first time I've ever kissed a man," she said.

"It's the first time I've craved for a kiss," he answered and gave her a soft, chaste kiss.

He took her home afterwards, hugging her tenderly. Since they were being observed, they couldn't kiss again for as much as they both were dying to do so. He kissed her hand with such devotion it made her caress it afterwards and left, promising he would write.

She entered to her room and sighed, a long tender sigh of a lover girl. All the night, she spent pacing around the room, walking up and down, her head just bearing thoughts of love, thoughts of Enjolras.

On his part, that same time she spent thinking about him, he spent writing to her. He touched his lips a few times, thinking of her reddish and warm lips. His thoughts took him to the point in which he went to sleep hugging a pillow and imagining it was Éponine. He was living a dream, something her thought he would never live.

She had the letter in her hand, five folded papers written side by side, with the neatest of letters. She read half of the first page and it was enough to make her smile widely.

_Dearest Éponine, _

_I want to thank you for the most amazing day of my life. I felt much more pleased than many other times that I would've considered the best. This might not sound romantic at all, but I'm going to be truthful in this letter that's written in the name of the most intense feelings towards a person that have ever struck my body. Although I had already experimented what kissing was like and saw nothing important with it, today I felt as if your lips and your company would be the only things I would ask for if I was to die tomorrow. _

_You might believe it's not me who's writing this but this is the first time I've ever felt this towards a woman…Éponine to be truthful I don't know what I'm feeling. It's ridiculous. I'm the leader of a revolution and I cannot decide what to feel for you. Don't judge me as foolish; in this moment I'm just a romantic fool and this letter…. this letter and our kiss, they were my ways of telling you, you've trapped me Éponine I don't know what you did to me, but you've trapped me. _

Éponine saved the letter in her drawer and ran to the piano room; she had to continue with the lyrics of the song to Enjolras.

_And I have finally realized, what you mean. _

Enjolras was talking halfheartedly during the debates that night. He was completely disappointed because Éponine was there, he expected her to be there. Everyone was commenting in a low voice of how he was so distracted but then she appeared, thirty minutes before the end and it made Enjolras' power in the last speeches rise to a point in which everyone felt completely fulfilled by everything he said.

"His muse came back to him," Marius said, relieved.

"Well, I think "his muse" has brown hair, blue dress and plays the piano," said Joly while pointing at Éponine, who was just sitting down.

"Do you think Enjolras and her? No, I don't think so…" said Combeferre from out of nowhere.

"Come on don't tell me you didn't see them going out yesterday?" Grantaire said from behind.

"You were drunk!" exclaimed Combeferre.

"Apparently not as drunk as you," he answered.

"I don't believe they're a couple…I mean she's a nice girl and he's just a stone-cold revolutionary," Combeferre said.

"Got any problem 'Ferre?" Courfeyrac asked.

"Nothing…just don't think 'Jolras will fall for a girl at this critical point," he answered, not very convinced.

"His problem. Personally there's nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, good that he has found a girl," Marius said.

Then, they noticed Enjolras was looking at all of them.

"The debates are over, gentlemen," he said severely, while looking at them directly.

Enjolras went to the second floor alone to work on some things, forgetting for a second about Éponine. She approached to _les amis _and said hi to every one of them, especially Grantaire who wasn't past drunk as she had seen him the afternoon before but normally drunk as she saw him every day so they had a normal conversation were all of them laughed.

Éponine realized those guys were really good people.

"This is unreal," she said.

"What is it?" Courfeyrac asked.

"I mean, you guys…are fantastic!" she answered and they all smiled.

"But I'm still your best friend?" Grantaire asked jokingly.

"Maybe if you tried not to get drunk every afternoon…" she said.

"Don't even try Éponine Lafévre," he said crossing her arms.

"I'm sorry, I had to _mon ami, l'ivre fou," _she said.

Since Enjolras was taking too long, she decided to leave him a message with his friends. She took a small paper and wrote something in it, folded it and gave it to Courfeyrac, who was the least drunk of all of them, asking him to please take it to Enjolras as soon as she left.

So she did and they thought they would find something provocative to tease their leader with but they just found this and not even one of them understood what it said:

_If the butterfly's presence was of your liking, arrive to the place were it embraced freedom._

When it arrived to Enjolras he understood perfectly that what butterfly and freedom meant and that's why he went running to the alley where he had kissed her. She was waiting for him, somewhat scared that he wasn't showing up.

With an impulse, he hugged her from behind and kissed her softly in the cheek. She blushed again and turned around to hug him, still troubled for that loving arrival to the man she had seen so marble-like just a few minutes ago.

"I'm so sorry not to accompany you since the café but there were many things I had to do. Will you forgive me?" he asked in a hurry, hugging her tighter with each word.

She smiled at him reassuringly.

"No problem…I understand that you are too proud to admit to your _amis_ that you're confused," she teased him and he pinched her cheek.

"Don't say that. It's not them what I fear," he said.

"Then what?" she asked.

"I fear you!" he said kind of mockingly and she crossed her arms.

"So the leader of the revolution fears a girl. That's very interesting," she said while walking past him.

"Where are you going, _ma belle_?" he asked grabbing her hand.

"Depends where the great leader wants to go," she said looking at him from the corner of her eye.

They walked to Éponine's academy and entered to seat in the garden were they have met the first day.

"This is a beautiful place…now I see why does Grantaire love it so much," he said gazing in amazement.

"You know? My parents wanted me to go to a conservatoire but since I refused to leave, I ended up here…it's my small palace of music," she said.

"When I was a kid, my mother wanted me to learn how to play an instrument. My father disagreed roundly and it was one of the first times he ever agreed with me on something…but my mother was determined with her desire and I finished playing the guitar for her every afternoon before I left to study university," he said feeling awkward; it was the first time he ever talked about his family.

"So you can play the guitar?" Éponine asked in awe.

"Yes, I do," he answered ashamed.

"Come with me! I've got to hear that!" she said happily while guiding him to a room full of instruments.

Éponine took a guitar and handed it to him, who refused even when having it in his hands.

"What if I play something to you?" she asked.

"But you're a pianist! I was forced to learn how to play the guitar," he said.

"And what's the point? You know how to play," she said, sitting on a chair near the piano and taking off the lid.

She refrained from playing the song she was writing for him because it wasn't complete and it would make their undetermined situation even more awkward. She smiled to him and started improvising something.

Enjolras looked at her fingers completely absorbed from reality until she finished and he just had to clap.

"That…that was simply awesome Éponine, you're really talented," he said, still absorbed.

"Well…it is your turn," she answered.

He sighed and took the guitar.

"There's a song my mother sang when I was a kid…she explained once that she got married with my father because he dedicated it to her but I never believed her; my father was too much of a proud and conceited person to actually procure a smile on somebody else's face," he explained a bi t angered.

"Well, conceited I don't know…but I can see were your pride comes from," she said.

"Oh my pride's different from his," he cleared.

"Anyways, would you sing it for me?" she asked.

"I'll try, but I'm not a guitarist and less a singer," he said before starting to play a tender ballad.

_You could be my unintended _

_Choice to live my life extended _

_You could be the one I'll always love_

His voice was inexperienced and unprepared but very sweet and Éponine blushed simply because of the song choice. She smiled at him and he saw her straightly in the eyes while singing softly and tenderly, only for her. She wondered if he was the same person she had seen at the Café Musain.

_You should be the one I'll always love._

He stood up afterwards and put the guitar in its place. Éponine was too mesmerized to say anything. He sighed and walked towards her.

"Éponine…I swear, you're going to be the death of me," he said.

All of this happened without them noticing that Grantaire, who had spotted them when he was searching for a teacher, accompanied by Combeferre and Courfeyrac, saw them from the doorway.

* * *

**Hello you guys! Thanks for reading...I have not much to say today, simply...I'm so happy, I'll continue writing this and more stuff...but something big is coming! I'm going to do a one shot for Enjolras soon, hope you also read it :) **

**-Cami **


	11. Chapter 11

"I cannot believe what you're telling me," said Marius the next day at the Café Musain when Combeferre told him, amid laughter and a lot of jokes, what they had seen at the arts academy.

"Completely true, and he had those same lost eyes you have when you mention your beautiful Cosette, which I haven't met yet," Courfeyrac said teasing with a kissy faces.

"Oh come on Courf! Give me a break! Besides, now you can bother Enjolras," Marius said while taking a sip of wine.

"Good morning _mes amis_," said Enjolras as he entered to the Café and sat down with them.

He was radiant and smiley that morning, which was something new in him. Éponine has asked him to be with his friends as he was with her, besides they would help him in his revolution and he owed to be friendly with them, not like a marble statue. Besides, the day before he had a perfect afternoon with Éponine, which was enough to make him smile for decades.

"So…what do you think about the art school?" Grantaire said smirking and every one of les amis looked at Enjolras for his answer.

"What art school?" Enjolras asked.

"Where I go to study? It's great! There is an amazing internal garden and the view…the panoramic is great, if you know what I mean…besides, you know, it's perfect to go into one of the classrooms and find an enchanting serenade. Don't you think Courf?" Grantaire said, his smirk growing, as Enjolras furrowed is eyebrows.

"Sounds perfect to me…but what do you mean with panoramic? The girls? Oh the girls! If they're all like your friend –what's her name again? - then the panoramic is great!" Courfeyrac answered.

"Her name's Éponine," Grantaire said and Enjolras stood up.

"I think Mademoiselle Éponine it's very beautiful and I'm going to ask her if she'll like to come by. Maybe I could say something very nice to her like…she's going to be the death of me?" Combeferre exclaimed and les amis, except Marius, laughed.

"ENOUGH! ALL OF YOU SHUT UP! IMPOSSIBLE, IMMATURE BRATS!" Enjolras shouted and left to encounter Éponine and reclaim why didn't she keep her mouth shut.

"I think…you guys took the joke to far," Marius said standing up, "someone go and find him before he messes everything up with the only girl we've known he likes!"

They all left running to his encounter but lost his trace and everyone divided to look for him.

Éponine was waiting for Enjolras at the Luxembourg Gardens. The day before they had set it up so they wouldn't have to fix a last minute "date" via letters. She was reading Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was inspired by its complexity, she would love to discuss it with Enjolras later.

He stormed and took her by the shoulders with that same assassin look he had the day she had tricked him at the garden. She laughed thinking it was a joke, which made him take a stronger grip and she saw with extremely scared eyes to the daggers his eyes had converted to.

"YOU LAUGHED OF ME!" He shouted as she said no with her head.

"What? What are you talking about?" She asked.

"YOU LAUGHED OF ME! YOU'RE JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER STUPID WOMEN, YOU JUST CARE ABOUT FAKE _LOVE _AND STUPID GOSSIPS!" he said and she started crying.

"Don't try to cry to me like that!" He said pushing her, he was completely out of himself, totally mad, a different person.

"What did I supposedly do Enjolras?" she said firmly.

"I trusted in you, I'm that STUPID!" He said, as she cleared her eyes of the tears, searching for a better explanation.

"You couldn't wait. NO! You couldn't wait to arrive to your house to send for your friend Grantaire and tell him every DAMNED DETAIL OF WHAT I TOLD YOU YESTERDAY! DAMNED HIPOCRATE!" He half said, half shouted and she looked at him in disbelief.

"I haven't seen Grantaire!" She cleared out.

"Or Combeferre or Courfeyrac. I DON'T CARE! The point is I cannot trust in you and I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU ANYMORE!" He said and half pushed her with contempt but felt guilty at the second when seeing her face of fear, confusion and profound sadness.

She turned around to leave and he took her hand again, wanting to say an apology but not knowing why or how to do so.

"Your father. He doesn't need to keep giving us money," he said and she took it as though he was with her just for her father's contribution.

"Now I know your intentions...please don't ever talk to me again. I'm asking you that as a favor…but don't worry my father won't stop contributing to your cause because those are two different topics," she said and left without saying anything else.

Through her way home, she felt like throwing herself from the Seine. Her heart ached even more than what it had hurt when Marius told her he had a fiancée. She was lost, completely.

Gavroche found her near a fountain, her face red and her eyes puffy.

"What happened to you 'Ponine?" he asked.

"Nothing 'Roche, nonessentials," she said shaking her head.

"That's how you cry for nonessentials? Does it have to do with…Enjolras?" he asked.

"NO IT DOESN'T HAVE TO DO WITH ENJOLRAS AND DON'T EVEN MENTION HIM TO ME!" She screamed and started crying inconsolably again.

"So it has to do with Enjolras…" he said and sat down next to her.

"Gavroche, I just lost the opportunity to play piano at the recital, that's it," she lied but couldn't even convince herself.

"So it has to do with Enjolras…" he repeated in that same tone, "let me take you home sister."

On the way home, Gavroche and Éponine had encountered Courfeyrac and Marius, who were frantically searching for Enjolras.

"Oh no…" Courfeyrac said when he saw Éponine.

"Have you seen Enjolras?" Marius blurted out and Courfeyrac looked at him with an assassin's face.

Éponine didn't answer and they both guessed he had been very harsh on her because of nothing.

"Éponine…whatever he said…it's not true. He's a hothead," Courfeyrac said.

"He's too headstrong, believe us," Marius said.

"I don't care anymore. You know what? I won't suffer for that…that…" she tried to say.

"THAT IDIOT!" Gavroche spat and took Éponine's hand.

At noon they all joined at the Café, canceled the day's meeting and ended up knocking on Enjolras' door.

"Enjolras? Are you there?" Combeferre asked.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" he answered.

"Open 'Jolras!" Courfeyrac said.

"I'm not opening and DON'T CALL ME 'JOLRAS!"

"You're acting like a kid!" Marius said.

"Don't you have to see Cosette today?" Enjolras blurted.

Suddenly, Grantaire remembered he had a key to Enjolras' apartment and opened the door to find a messed up house. Enjolras' pulchritude was admired by all _les amis _but in that moment in which they found tables and chairs thrown all over the place, crumbled papers addressed to him with the same feminine letter all around and the same Enjolras in such a state of deplorability they all got very worried.

His always combed blonde curls were all messy, his eyes red and puffy like he had cried for hours, his clothing, always perfect, was now shreds that covered his body and there were a bunch of bottles scattered all around. Enjolras was suffering a great deal thinking that he had fallen in love for the first time in his life with a girl that he still thought was the most amazing person on earth and she didn't mind at all.

He didn't know, that miles away at home and immerse in a febrile crying, Éponine was singing what she thought were the last sad lines of the love song meant him.

_But when I look back at all the crazy fights we had… it's like some kind of madness was taken control._

"Man, what happened to you?" Bahorel asked.

"Come on don't play with me like she did…laugh like you do with Marius imbeciles! Laugh now but tomorrow morning try and I'm going to break your teeth!" he said straightly to their faces, which made them smell that distinctive halitosis of drunken men.

Even drunk, Enjolras looked like a leader and a very respectable one, so nobody said a word.

"Courfeyrac…explain to him," Grantaire said before backing up.

"No, Combeferre, you do so," Courfeyrac said.

"No…it's better if Bahorel does it," Combeferre said.

"I wasn't in there!" Bahorel exclaimed and Enjolras looked at them curiously, like a child, before laughing in their faces.

"Tell me what?" he said, "you don't have to tell me anything! You're the only friends I have and let me tell you…I LOVE YOU ALL!"

Now he was starting to behave like a real drunk. He stood up, hugged Grantaire who swore he would never get drunk again if he acted that way and walked to the kitchen to fetch more wine. He came back to were les amis were standing and drank straight from the bottle.

"Enjolras…what did you say to Éponine?" Grantaire started.

"Éponine…Éponine, I don't remember any Éponine. Haha! Nice name! Éponine. Ah! I remember…that gossip…she told you everything 'Taire, but you know? I don't have any problem with you…just her and you know what? It's all over…no more Éponine," he said while sitting down and putting his hands on his face.

This was the first time they saw Enjolras heavily drunk to the point of babbling incoherencies. Also, it was the first time they had ever seen his leader crying and it was the first time they saw him suffering for love. The scene was of general shock.

"Alright Enjolras, they have damaged it and they'll repair it. Now give me that bottle," Marius said.

"Marius…Marius…sweet, lovable Marius. Take a good grip on that girl of yours, because you don't know what's suffering about love. I do and it's very freaking painful. Me? Loving a girl? What's that!" he exclaimed punching his chest.

"ENJOLRAS! LOOK AT ME!" Marius said and finally got Enjolras' attention, "you disrespected mademoiselle Éponine. I don't know what you told her but she was devastated and I know why. You think he told everyone about you and her yesterday at the art school or whatever."

"She did, such a hypocrite…fake like every girl," he said between clenched teeth.

"NO SHE DIDN'T AND SHE'S NOT FAKE! RESPECT HER YOU IDIOT!" Grantaire said.

"Listen, I know she's your friend…but what she did to me…" Enjolras started.

"She did nothing to you! We were there out of a casualty, accompanying the sober drunk finding a teacher when WE saw and heard everything at the music room. Today we wanted to play with you around…"Combeferre explained.

"Like we, including you, do with Marius every damned day of his life! But _you _softy hothead blamed it all on the girl and make her cry like she had the fault of something she WASN'T EVEN AWARE OF! Jesus, I don't know what she sees in you idiot," Courfeyrac finished and Enjolras' face dropped in amazement, shame and fury.

"YOU ARE FUCKING IDIOTS I HATE YOU MORE THAN EVERYTHING IMBECILES LEAVE MY HOUSE I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU'RE STILL HERE!"

His screams stormed through all the building and the neighbors came shouting to make him stop. Enjolras was breathing heavily, his face red and his putting his hands in fists. He started by trying to strangle Combeferre.

"I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT ÉPONINE THIS MORNING!" he shouted and les amis, while laughing tried to separate them. Even Combeferre was laughing; there was so much alcohol in Enjolras' veins that every dingle one of his movements were slowed to a point in which everything he attempted just made him giggle.

Other would have been the story if the great leader had been his five senses. Probably, poor old Combeferre would be out of combat for about half a year.

But then, Enjolras woke up.

"I must go to Éponine's house. I must beg her to forgive me!" he said while running to the door but Marius grabbed him.

"MARIUS LET ME GO! YOU, MORE THAN EVERYONE KNOW HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS FOR ME!" Enjolras shouted at him but Marius kept a strong hold. As a desperate measure, he started biting Marius' shoulder.

"How do you think she'll look at you if you go drunk and like a savage to her home?" He asked, pushing him to a sofa.

"More importantly, her parents wouldn't even let you see her, not tonight and not ever again," Courfeyrac pointed out but Enjolras didn't even listen to him for he had fallen asleep to dream of Éponine.

They carried him to his bed and all of les amis were needed to complete this task. Alcohol made him even heavier.

"Am I really like that when I get drunk?" Grantaire asked as they closed the door.

"You mean every day?" Marius asked while laughing.

"Much worse my friend…much worse," Bahorel said amid laughter.

"By the way…what's going to happen with Éponine and Enjolras?" Grantaire asked.

"I don't know…maybe they'll solve it alone," Joly proposed.

"That's…way to optimistic," Combeferre noted and they all nodded.

"We must do something to help….for after all, the fault's all yours!" Marius said, "now, if you forgive me, I must get going."

"This, my friends, is the moment in which the lusty degenerated replaces us for a skirt," Courfeyrac said to les amis as Marius ran to the Rue Plumet.

* * *

**Please don't hate me too much! I didn't enjoy writing this either...but I promise something quite good will come afterwards! Thanks so much for reading and commenting!**

**-Cami **


	12. Chapter 12

The next day, Enjolras woke up almost at midday. His head hurt very much and he had a horrible impulse to throw up everything he had eaten until that point of his life. But his mind was just focused on one thing: Éponine and how he had treated her the day before because of a joke he took too seriously.

He wrote a letter to her and decided, for as much as he wanted to go running straight to her arms, that the most convenient thing was to pay a visit when he was completely back to normal. He couldn't believe he had drunk so much wine the night before.

He took out of his pocket the crumpled page of Sonnet Number Eighteen and looked at it for a while before deciding to actually read the poem for the first time, which made him smile with irony.

In the middle of the poem, forming tears made him see all blurry, so he put the poem on the table and looked away. He let the tears fall for a few minutes, remembering how the day before, just when he woke up, he wanted to say something very concrete to Éponine, a secret of the kind he wouldn't have dared to reveal before meeting her. He wanted to tell her that he liked her smile, that he just thought in their kiss and the letters he had written came from the bottom of his heart and then he wanted to end by asking her in fake misery to let him think about France for a little while, he knew she would've laughed.

He also figured out that he had to apologize with his friends for he remembered insulting them when they wanted to fix their stupid joke. He wouldn't accept he resented them a little bit but the truth was that he disrespecting Éponine, it was his entire fault.

He felt asleep over the table with a massive headache that was killing the neurons in his brain but was suddenly woken by an intense knocking on the door.

"Open 'Jolras we didn't buy croissants for nothing!" Joly exclaimed.

He dragged himself to the door with all the force in his body and saw all of Les Amis with a bunch of bags on their hands and smiles on their faces. Enjolras wasn't in the best moment of physical appearance but at least he didn't look like the kind of people they would've found on the decks, which was how he looked the day before.

"We figured out you wouldn't go anywhere today…so we brought breakfast to share with you," Courfeyrac explained as les amis began setting the table.

"Wouldn't go anywhere? I must go to Éponine's house today and besides, yesterday we didn't have debates, today we must have a double session!" Enjolras exclaimed while sitting down.

"Double session!" Everyone exclaimed at the same time.

"Enjolras…you're crazy man, just eat and enjoy the moment," Grantaire said.

"No…the revolution cannot wait any longer, I have delayed so much with my personal things and that's so…unprofessional," he remarked while shaking his head.

"So…unprofessional," Combeferre mimicked.

Enjolras then noticed Combeferre had a shade below his eye that was very green and tempting to become a purplish horrid thing that would make his round face look like that of the hunchback of Notre Dame.

"Combeferre…that happened to you yesterday?" He asked before taking a piece of croissant to his mouth.

"You mean the eye? Joly says it's fine and for him to say this…you know it must be fine. You were too drunk to make a serious injury," Combeferre answered and Enjolras felt ashamed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and all of les amis looked at him wide eyed.

"Enjolras? You have been such a display of emotions in the last 48 hours that I just need to process this…don't say anything else now or I'm going to have to sleep for a few hours," said Courfeyrac and made them all, Enjolras included, laugh.

"Seriously. I know this is the most awkward thing to hear from me but you're my only friends and really, I appreciate you guys," he said.

"HAHA! Yesterday you said you loved us with all your heart," Bahorel said mockingly and Enjolras just closed his eyes, profoundly ashamed.

"You completely damaged the moment Bahorel," he said and all of his friends laughed.

"Now, regarding today's session…" he began.

"NO!" They all shouted and threw him pieces of food.

"Better practice what you're going to say to the lady before going there," Feuilly proposed.

"I could help you with a sonnet," Jean Prouvaire offered and, once again, they all laughed.

At her home, Éponine woke up very late so she didn't have to face her family at breakfast time. She combed her hair and dress simply; the day was going to be a long day of reflection.

'Crecia brought breakfast to her bed along with an envelope. She left the girl without questioning her, for she knew her sufferings were things of the heart and those are the ones you cannot discuss without feeling hurt.

Éponine put her plate apart after giving a few bites to her toast and taking a sip of juice. She took the envelope in her hands and sighed when she recognized Enjolras' calligraphy but opened it without hesitations.

_Dearest Éponine, _

_I don't know how to start this. Let me tell you that I'm sorry. Everything I told you yesterday didn't come from my heart as opposed to everything I've told you during these days. It's impossible for you to understand my despair in a letter but I promise I'm going to visit you soon. _

Éponine couldn't keep reading for her eyes were already watery and she wanted to avoid more crying. Enjolras had done her a lot of wrong, he had proven that he simply was with her because her father's contributions to his revolution and past that, he had insulted her, he had called her hypocrite, he had pushed her and she wouldn't allow him to do anything as such in a future for as much as she loved him.

She wouldn't be hurt again, she wouldn't let him –or any other man- hurt her in any way and that began by deciding not to succumb to the first apology he gave to her.

She was tempted to write to him maybe to ask him to leave her alone, but decided it wouldn't be as concise and the message wouldn't be as effective. Éponine came to the conclusion that if she could go past her feelings and tell directly to his face that she didn't want to see him anymore as he had done so brutally at the Luxembourg, then she would feel strong enough to avoid being seduced again.

She stayed for a while staring at the letter in her hands, skim reading a few lines and words and trying to decide what to do with it (saving it would be extremely inappropriate, like a self imposed massacre to her good judgment and already demolished feelings) until Gavroche entered to the room.

"Good morning 'Ponine!" he said in the happiest tone he could.

"Good morning 'Roche! How are you today?" she asked and without thinking she disposed the partially unread letter.

Gavroche sat on her bed, legs crossed in front of her.

"I'm fine sister. How are you feeling today?" he asked with a smile.

"I'm alright, just thinking a little," she answered and frowned for she knew her brother wanted to see her happy.

"Come here 'Roche," she said opening her arms to him as his face converted from happiness to disappointment.

He jumped to her arms and snuggled for a while with her. Éponine kissed his forehead a bunch of times with the tenderness of a mother and a few tears jumped from her eyes. Oh! How much she loved that little boy she had the honor to call her brother.

"Gavroche,"

"What?"

"I know it's weird for me to tell you this…but I love you very much dear brother."

He answered by hugging her even more and she smiled. They stayed in that same position for a while, enjoying of each other's company. Gavroche loved his sister but never actually said it to her and he knew that in this moment she needed it more than ever.

"Hey 'Roche, this afternoon will you go to the Café?" she said suddenly breaking the peaceful silence.

"I will indeed 'Ponine, as I do every day," he answered with another smile.

"I want to accompany you,"

Gavroche's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he wondered why would his sister want to go there. He figured out, after a second thought, that she just wanted to see Enjolras and he felt his feelings divided. For once, he knew he made her happy and of course, he had seen the sudden change in the revolutionary leader. Besides, he thought about how, being Éponine's brother, he could be counted even more in the upcoming revolution because he was very often uncounted for being a kid. On the other hand, it upset him how she would forgive him so easily after all the drama of the day before. He didn't know what happened really but he could guess it was not a little thing for his sister was not the kind of girl that would cry for small things.

"Are you sure 'Ponine?"

"I am indeed, I want to learn so much more about this revolution. I've heard General Lamarque is going to die soon. Poor man," she said and actually sound convincing because it was partially true.

"It surprises me that you know so much about those topics," he said standing up, "I'll tell you when's time to leave."

He left the room and she took the tray with her breakfast to the kitchen before going to the piano that was screaming her name. She sat down and immediately felt acceptance and the unique love that her instrument could bring to her. It was an unimaginable connection between the melody and her fingers, the piano and her soul.

_Next time I'll be braver, I'll be my own savior when thunder comes to me. _

She continued playing and felt really weird when nobody in her family came to tell her something. Her parents used to find her there when she didn't go to take breakfast with them but the only one that appeared that day was 'Crecia, telling her that M. and Mme. Lafévre had to go and run some errands together so they wouldn't be at home at all.

Éponine was actually very grateful for their absence because she would have a lot of time to think. But after thirty minutes, the environment at her house seemed opaque and made her recur to despair so she took her coat, her musical books and asked Gavroche to please seek for her at the academy at the time of the debates.

Due to the hour, the streets were full of people and she kept stumbling with someone here and there, which was totally disturbing. She walked with her books clenched to her chest and took everything she had from her pockets because she knew that people had the custom to pickpocket to survive. She didn't blame them but would rather give the money directly than having somebody putting his or her hand on her pockets.

Enjolras, who was walking to her house, spotted her immediately amid the crowd and his face lit up. He called her name a few times but she didn't seem to hear or recognize his voice.

"Éponine!" he shouted and she finally turned around.

She looked for a while, knowing that it was Enjolras who had shouted her name and trying to avoid him. She finally turned around again and continued her way to the academy, which he guessed immediately and tried to follow her until he found Marius in the way.

"Where are you going? I was searching for you," he questioned.

"Nowhere in particular…what did you need?" Enjolras asked.

"Need? Nothing! Don't you remember, _mon ami, _that today M. Lafévre was starting to bring armament to the place we signaled?" Marius reminded him.

Throughout the week, they had reunited with Messieurs Lafévre, De Lyon and Lapaditte a couple of times and since General Lamarque's death was imminent, they decided to take a step ahead and start buying things before it was too late.

The errands Monsieur Lafévre had to run were of this nature and Madame Lafévre was his alibi since, in case the police or the military started with their eccentricities, nobody would believe he was fetching armament for a revolution with his wife by his side, that would be to dangerous for everyone involved.

They decided the armament and equipment would be saved in a small rented and free flat that Monsieur Lapaditte owned on the first floor of an old building at the center of the city. Nobody knew it was his property because he had never been there personally but sent people to take care for it a few times throughout the years.

Madame Lafévre and Monsieur De Lyon arrived in a carriage with five huge boxes, all of them containing guns and ammunition. She descended the carriage and said she was the new inquiline of the apartment, claiming she was moving with her husband from a very far town and the neighbors all helped.

Then, Monsieur Lafévre arrived with five more boxes, these ones containing a variety of things ranging from guns and ammunitions to food and bandages.

Later that day, Monsieur Lapaditte was in charge of taking seven more boxes to the apartment.

The operation would continue for the following weeks, until the revolutionaries had everything they considered for their victory.

Before closing the door with a huge lock, Les Amis entered to see in marvel all of what they now had for the revolution.

"This is so much armament!" Grantaire exclaimed.

"This is the beginning of our revolution," said Enjolras whose heart was beating fast and could barely breath properly.

On the way to the Café, Enjolras had a vision, sort of a liquid dream in which Éponine fought by his side in the barricades. He saw somebody pointing at her with his gun and she didn't oppose, her eyes were those of resigned people. She smiled at him and he shouted for her to cover or run but she just said goodbye and sent a kiss with her hand before being shot. He quickly came back from that daydreaming session which could've also been called a nightmare and for the first time in his life, he was fearful with something regarding his revolution.

"Éponine" he whispered as he opened the doors of Le Café Musain.

* * *

**Thanks so much for reading and commenting this chapter! :) A lot of things are going to happen hahaha mostly due to the fact that when I sit to continue thinking more and more ideas are coming to my head! I'm quite enjoying this and I hope you also do. I want to thank my dear reviewers and also everyone that follows this story. I really really really hope to not defraud you here. And by the way..the fragment of the song here is Adele's Turning Tables, didn't find anything more suitable for it. I'll love to hear a few recommendations to feature the barricade (a weird chapter I'm thinking how to give shape to)...you can PM me or comment if you find something suitable for that moment. I was thinking about Viva La Vida by Coldplay ;) **

**Love you all,**

**-Cami. **


	13. Chapter 13

"Éponine" Enjolras whispered as he opened the doors of Le Café Musain.

And there she was, uniquely beautiful, as he had always perceived her. Éponine was seated on the last row in between Gavroche and his friends, the kids that had asked her if Enjolras was her boyfriend. She was enjoying herself with the kids but Enjolras couldn't understand why wasn't she in the front row like the last time.

Grantaire noticed the girl and ran to her, hugging her affectively and Éponine was purely smiles and loud laughs. Inside, the girl was dying to talk to Enjolras. Since he arrived she had noticed how he was staring at her from a distance but she wouldn't be renouncing to her purposes.

Grantaire took her by the arm to the be greeted by Les Amis and they all did it in an affectionate way because they liked her and because they thought they owed it after being the indirect cause of the whole disaster with Enjolras.

Then, when it was her turn to greet Enjolras, they looked at each other's eyes, not saying anything. Everyone was quiet around them, staring and waiting for any kind of interaction.

Éponine's expressive and forget me not eyes were ice to Enjolras and he felt himself cringe for he wanted to see her caring gaze and not those stakes that pierced his flesh and bones and left him bleeding inside. For the first time in his life, Enjolras felt that cold sweat that lowered from everyone's neck when he looked at them with his immutable and freezing blue eyes and he hated it with his soul.

"Éponine," he said once again.

"Monsieur Enjolras," she answered with a small gesture with her head, leaving his face dropping with surprise.

"I'm hoping you have a good debate tonight," she said quickly before he could say anything else and turned to leave.

Enjolras didn't stop her but watched her as she walked back to the place were she had been seated with Gavroche and his friends and roll her eyes as she saw Grantaire had already a bottle of wine in his hands.

"She's a woman and you injured her pride, everything's going to be fine, now concentrate," Courfeyrac tried to console the still surprised leader who started showing signals of pain on his face while pushing him to the front.

Enjolras' face stiffened once again and he concentrated to begin his speech of the night. He sat down and saw Marius step to the front to introduce the topics.

"General Lamarque has been the only person that approached to the poor to make promises that didn't stay in words gone with the wind. He actually helped us with all his influences and made sure that when he left, his legacy to us was the willingness to fight for our rights. His life's a symbol of freedom and it's justified that his health is important to this revolution we're constructing with every word. But that symbol might disappear soon because he's going to die," Marius said.

"And the day he dies, the barricades will rise in his name, in the name of France, of freedom, of democracy for the sake of Patria," Combeferre finished totally inspired.

Everyone started clapping and Enjolras realized Éponine had moved from her place to seat in a nearby table; she was taking notes, which seemed quite interesting to him. He smiled to himself before taking the word.

"Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out. Our moment's coming to stand up and scream over the top of our lungs. It's time to people to sing for our banners to advance. We have everything we need to make the whole world tremble with so much blood in running wild in our veins, we'll made them realize that when we all bleed, we bleed the same and all of this loneliness, all of this differences, they're going to be completely over. We'll make justice to Rousseau, we'll make justice to Montesquieu, and we'll even make justice to Robespierre's less bloody and more centered views. Our chests will resist more than a thousand of bullets because we'll be covered by the protection of our mother country, of Patria," Enjolras said, succeeded by applauses and screams.

Enjolras' animosity felt a little when he saw Éponine had her eyes glued to her papers and she was writing furiously fast, not even looking at him. He knew she was taking notes of what they said because she often asked Gavroche to repeat for her.

"How are we going to fight? The opposition will have armament! We'll get killed very quickly. Sirs, I respect you very much and the cause is also something I believe in, but I have a wife and three kids, which am all fighting for, but I cannot think what would be of them if I get killed," a man from the crowd said and was seconded by many others.

Éponine raised her gaze and saw them all for a moment. She felt foolish for it was the first time she had contemplated the idea of them being assassinated at the barricade. She felt the tears coming down to her cheeks as she imagined Enjolras, Grantaire and the rest of Les Amis being killed by the National Guard with no glory and no cause.

"Who said we didn't have armament too? We do have ways to defend ourselves; we received a huge amount of things -which I won't specify today- to help us win fairly," Courfeyrac answered.

Éponine cringed and this time feared even more the life of her father. She stood up, took the notes she was taking and excused herself with Gavroche before running away to the house. She was determined to talk with her father.

To nobody's eyes went unnoticed the fact that Enjolras ran behind her, leaving the meeting without any contemplations.

He found her in the same spot were he had reached her the first time they met and he grabbed her by the shoulders to face him. This was nothing new to her but she was too scared to resist his grip, so she turned around and offered him a scrutinizing look.

"What do you want monsieur? I'm in a hurry to arrive home," She said almost out of breath.

"Éponine, why did you leave that way? Why are you crying?" He asked trying to clean her tears with his thumb but she cringed.

"Nothing of your concern sir," she answered.

"Please call me Enjolras! Not monsieur or sir once again," he almost pleaded.

"Look, _monsieur, _I'm in no mood to stand in the middle of the street and maintain a conversation I'm really not forward to have. The last time you approached to me in this same way, I ended up being insulted and I don't want this to happen again. Not now and not ever, do you understand me?" she said and turned around.

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

"You know you aren't," she answered and walked away, her heart breaking for being so harsh on him.

She then remembered that she had to talk seriously with her father and ran away, driven by pain and fear. Enjolras thought he had lost her forever and also turned around in defeat.

Immediately before arriving to Le Café Musain, his conscience hated his own feelings of lost and they turned to an implacable hatred towards everything and nothing. His face turned stiff again and he saw as ridiculous every thought that regarded Éponine and love for anything that wasn't his cause. He entered to the Café with a new air of revolution and nothing else, he was once again the leader they were all used to.

Enjolras found out that some intense news had arrived during his absence and Gavroche had gone to check upon them. Whatever he said would change the course of the revolution.

Éponine arrived home at the same time as her father, who had heard the news and immediately reunited with Messieurs Lapaditte and De Lyon to finish a few details. Paris would see the revolution soon.

"Father!" Éponine called.

Her father hugged her and for the first time she didn't feel secure in his arms. Éponine started crying disconsolately. She missed Enjolras and guilt broke her soul in two because she didn't have to say those hard words to him. Now she knew she was in love and instead of feeling great about it, it weighed in her heart. Also, those feelings were mixed with the fear of losing him and losing her friends and her father in the upcoming revolution.

She couldn't visualize a world without her father or without having the "Mr. ever drunken madman" of Grantaire around. Over all, she wasn't able to imagine living without telling Enjolras what she felt, of regretting every moment she didn't speak to him. The fact that they had fought for a day and a half made it worse because she felt ridiculous.

"I'm hear for you…don't bothering in telling me what's happening," he whispered softly in her ear.

She looked at him in between the tears, admiring the strands of white hair covering his head, his unequivocal smile of reassurance, the signs of age on his always tranquil face, the generosity and good willingness that emanated from his skin like a especial fragrance from the heart and the virtue of his character. She hugged him back, crying in his big chest, sobbing like a child.

Her mother soon entered to the room when hearing the commotion. She asked Monsieur Lafévre, with that distinctive language of the eyes that just lovers understand, what was happening.

"Our daughter is now fully aware of what the consequences of our cause might bring, ma belle," he said,

The three of them sat on a sofa, both parents hugged Éponine and she smiled at them while thinking what to do. She soon realized her mother, from whom she had never seen a glimpse of weakness, was also crying. Éponine didn't need any especial knowledge to understand that her mother was also worried and she realized she had to go to Enjolras in that same moment.

"Mother, father, I must attend an important issue or I won't be able to sleep tonight," she said.

"My dear, you know I never prohibit you anything but tonight I want you to stay here," her father said.

"Why?" she asked impatiently.

"You'll know later. If things get back to normal, personally I'll accompany you to address your issue tomorrow morning," he insisted, "now, why don't you play the piano for us? So your mother can calm down?"

Monsieur Lafévre knew that the only thing that could possibly calm his daughter was the piano and she could spend hours with the instrument even in the worst of times because of the connection her soul had with music. With the information he knew, he preferred his children to stay at home for their safety. He had already sent for Gavroche, which would be a difficult task due to his involvement with Les Amis but he didn't want them to participate in the barricade.

Éponine continued the lyrics for Enjolras because she decided he had to listen to the song. She would go to him and say everything she had to say with the song so she poured her essence in it.

_I have finally seen the light…I have finally realized: I need to love._

At the Café Musain everyone was crazily getting drunk: the news had been confirmed and they would advance soon. Enjolras was writing impatiently and handed a folded paper to Gavroche, asking him to please give it to his sister as soon as he arrived home. Although a few hours ago he had hated feeling something for Éponine, the emotion everyone shared for the upcoming revolution made him review the fact that maybe he wouldn't see Éponine again, so he had to write to her.

When he finally finished writing, he noticed how Marius was thinking while Grantaire offered him wine and Courfeyrac talked to him. He approached, guessing what had his friend so preoccupied.

"I cannot guess what you're feeling…but if it's useful for some consolation to you, I'm also in an internal war with myself," he said and Marius smiled humorlessly to him.

"Don't worry, mes amis, I'm going to be with you," he simply answered and drank the glass of wine in a sip, "now, excuse me, I'll go to pay my last visit to her."

Enjolras drank from the wine that Grantaire had also offered to him, praying for the letter to arrive to Éponine and for her to have the good sense to go although she didn't want so see him anymore.

Late at night, Éponine was still singing and playing the piano to her parents when Gavroche arrived, lead by one of the house's servants.

"Mama, papa, 'Ponine! I have news," he said excitedly.

"What happened?" his mother asked, Éponine stopped playing the piano and everyone was looking at him.

"General Lamarque died tonight and tomorrow the revolution will start!" he said excitedly.

Madame Lafévre did the signal of the cross and sent a prayer for the souls of the revolutionaries.

"Is it confirmed?" Monsieur Lafévre asked.

"It is. Tomorrow will be the funeral and when they take him to the graveyard, we will jump to action!" he exclaimed.

"You won't go anywhere but my side young boy!" Madame Lafévre said and then continued with her prayers.

Éponine's eyes went from her father to Gavroche, rested a moment on her mother's form and then went back to his father. She was quickly thinking and connecting words and actions. She was hurt and her fears were turning to a reality, they were going to fight tomorrow and the last memory Enjolras would have from her was she telling him she didn't want to see him again.

Her eyes turned watery again and she felt hopeless.

"YOU KNEW!" she said to her father, "You knew all of this that's why you wouldn't let me go to him and he'll die and I won't ever see him again."

She sobbed and shouted at her father.

"You're selfish! You're selfish!" She said and he hugged her again. She tried to free herself from his embrace but he didn't let her and he sooth her until her sobs were almost inaudible.

"Papa…I don't want anything to happen to them or to you," she cried.

"Nothing will happen to us. Regarding them, my dear they already know what to do," he said softly and kissed her forehead and left to write letters to Messieurs Lapaditte and De Lyon.

She felt stupid for even Gavroche had mature look on his face and she couldn't stop crying. 'Roche walked to her, hugged her softly and passed to her the folded piece of paper Enjolras gave to her.

She opened it and read it a couple of times.

_My dearest Éponine,_

_Tomorrow we will raise our banners and freedom will come along with us to the fest of gunshots for Patria. Our time is now and I cannot feel more proud to see the realization of my dreams tonight. But I'm missing something important: I'm missing you because you're one of the greatest discoveries in my cause, someone I value and someone I care for. I know I acted foolishly like a stupid young boy but I need to see you before tomorrow comes._

_Please walk to the alley just in front of your house. I'll make sure you'll be safe; we're going to be alone. I just want to talk to you and see you smile once again._

_With love,_

_J. Enjolras_

Éponine kissed the letter and saved it in her pocket. She stood up and walked to the door, trying to open it up but it was closed. Some servants came and stood in front of it.

"Mademoiselle, you cannot leave the house, orders of your father," one of them said.

She started screaming and 'Crecia took her by the arm to her room, although she was shouting like a kid. Another servant took Gavroche to the same room, he was shouting and saying nobody would stop him from going to the barricade but 'Crecia looked herself with them until both of them felt asleep, which wasn't until very late.

Gavroche had gotten tired from screaming and Éponine, from crying and pleading to her nana.

Enjolras waited for her in the alley for a long time. He heard shouting from the house but it was too far away for him to distinguish so he, in the rage that started forming, perceived it as laughter. He left totally enraged, furious while thinking Éponine's pride had been too big to allow her coming and being with him for a few minutes. He decided he wouldn't think of her again and he would just care of the big day to come.

* * *

**The next chapter it's quite big! I hope you're liking the story so far :) I'm posting this story in plays too because of an advice I was given :) Thanks so much for reading and please comment! **

**Love you all, **

**-Cami**


	14. Chapter 14

Éponine woke up earlier than ever that freezing morning. The street outside her house was revolved with mixed activity from the National Guard and other people, most of them just wanting to see what was going on. General Lamarque's body was going to be paraded through principal streets to the graveyard at Saint Dennis' Church in an official event that would end up in the revolution Enjolras and Les Amis had been planning since always, the revolution that was implanted in Enjolras' heart since before he had been born.

The day was surrounded by a solemnity unknown to everyone. Gavroche woke up and took Éponine's hand while standing by her side and staring through the window.

"Don't you already hear the people sing?" he asked but Éponine didn't answer; she was too worried.

'Crecia appeared with Gavroche's clothing and shoes in her hands and Madame Louise, the old cook, appeared by her side with their breakfasts on a tray.

"My children please take your breakfast and afterwards go and take a bath. 'Roche, I brought you your clothing so you don't leave the room. I'll prepare your baths, Madame Louise will stay here, making sure you eat," 'Crecia said and they looked at her in disbelief.

"So…our father plans that we don't leave this room? Not even to take breakfast? He never prohibited us anything but precisely today we're getting quarantine like we had an epidemic disease! Where's my father? I need to talk to him now!" Éponine demanded.

"Child, he left very early and your mother isn't feeling good enough to leave bed. We have received orders and we aren't going to violate them today!" Madame Louise answered.

"You're impossible! Impossible indeed!" Éponine said, looking at the window just at the exact moment in which General Lamarque's body passed in front of the house.

Madame Louise and 'Crecia, who had returned to the room, did the signal of the cross on their foreheads and started praying for the soul of that mythic man they never knew and now passed in front of them. Éponine, after bowing with her head to the memory of General Lamarque, stood in tiptoes to try and recognize some familiar faces among the crowd that followed the official parade but failed. Gavroche, maturely enough, paid his last respects to the man of his admiration.

The room was summed in the silence of death, which was starting to oppress Éponine's chest just when it was interrupted with the first gunshots coming from a nearby street. This sound frightened Éponine so much her knees started to tremble and soon her legs weren't strong enough to keep her standing. She sought support in Gavroche, who didn't fail in giving it to her.

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine where was Enjolras at the moment, where was her father and her friends, what was happening to them. She tried to idealize it as much as possible so she wouldn't find blood in her mind but she couldn't, and as a consequence she imagined them all being brutally killed by the National Guard, not having any respect with their bodies or their souls.

"Madame Louise, 'Crecia…would you let me go to my piano? Please, I'm not even asking to let me leave the house, just this room…just the room," she pleaded without much energy.

"We're very sorry my child," 'Crecia answered.

"This is so wrong! Why wouldn't they let us go at least out of this room? I mean what can I possibly do in my room alone…it's not like I was going to escape all alone!" Gavroche exclaimed totally enraged.

Éponine sat down on her desk and imagined she was playing the piano. In her heart, Enjolras' song replayed and her fingers imitated the position of her fingers. She soon reassumed her inspiration and continued writing one of the last bits of the song.

_Come to me_

_Just in a dream _

_Come on and rescue me _

She sang the song with such a feeling and tears in her eyes. She wondered once again what would be of Enjolras and Les Amis. She then worried about her father, why wasn't he at home?

Suddenly, her father knocked the door and entered to the room, receiving a glare from Gavroche while Éponine didn't even turn around. She was trying to see something from her window without achieving anything.

"You can leave this room…but not the house. Both of you understand me?" Monsieur Lafévre said after a prolonged sigh.

Éponine stood up, walked to him and rested a childish kiss on his cheek while hugging him.

"You won't leave the house either, right?" she asked.

"I won't," he answered.

Then both of them left to the living room, to see if they could see something better from that big window.

A few streets down, Les Amis stood straightly in both sides of the street. They heard as the carriage with General Lamarque came from upper streets and they looked at each other with straight faces and pride in their eyes. Enjolras took his hand to the pocket of his jacket and made sure that Sonnet Number Eighteen in which Éponine had written his name was still there. He smiled to himself one last time remembering that petit brunette. The memories of something existing between them, of the sonnet with his name, of the Luxembourg, of the academy and the alley, they all seemed so old, as though they had happened not days but years ago.

As the carriage approached, his face stiffened again as he presented his respects towards the memory of General Lamarque.

From the bottom of his heart, the words he had longed to speak took an intensity he hadn't felt before. He heard his words breaking the martial and imposed silence in which the whole country had been immersed since the beginning of terror, of monarchy and dictatorship.

"IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM, FRENCH REVOLUTIONARIES, RAISE YOUR VOICES!"

The following events occurred in front of everyone's eyes like a liquid mirror. The moment was full of patriotism, of hope and new views.

"IN THE NAME OF PATRIA, CHILDREN OF THE MOTHERLAND, CITIZENS OF FRANCE, RAISE YOUR BANNERS!"

Enjolras felt victorious without having face the battle. Everyone he ever trusted stood up by his side, they held the banner he had always dreamed, everyone cheered, everyone sang as they advance to the path of democracy. Les Amis and the supporters of the revolution took over the street; they took one of the many carriages of the parade and stood up in it, their banners advanced and their cause was gaining more sudden followers, who all looked at Enjolras very pleased.

All of this air of festivity was interrupted by the gunshots that didn't fail to appear in the scene. They hit an innocent woman, who was cheering and singing in the front row. It killed her immediately. Everyone stood still looking at the body. Courfeyrac ran to her and took her in his arms. It was a sweet adolescent, almost little girl that had still too much to live.

"What were you thinking? SHE WAS AN INNOCENT WOMAN!" Courfeyrac shouted to the member of the National Guard who had shot her.

Enjolras almost felt his heart stop when he confused that woman with Éponine but then a man, that seemed her lover, picked her in his arms and he realized it wasn't her.

That member of the National Guard was threatening Courfeyrac with his gun so Enjolras heard himself shout once again.

"IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, TO THE BARRICADES!"

Everyone followed him. The French flag along with the red banner of the revolution were raised everywhere. A few doors away from the apartment in which they had saved their armament, the barricade was being built with everything they could find; chairs, tables, cabinets, old clocks, old wagons, loose pieces of wood, everything worked to raise the barricade of freedom.

"Today's the day my friends!" Enjolras said and everyone stopped what they were doing to listen to the convinced leader who stood invincible on top of the tallest barricade France had ever seen.

"Get some rest, we'll need energy for tonight," he said slowly walking down from the barricade and helping making it stronger with more wood and loose materials.

At her house, Éponine felt nervous with everything she heard (or thought she heard). She didn't eat even when her parents made her seat with them at the dinner table. She couldn't concentrate and it was very worrying for everyone when she stated that not even the piano brought her peace.

"Maybe after today, it might never bring me peace again," she said while closing her eyes and covering her head with her arms.

"Everything's going to be fine, 'Ponine, everything's going to be alright. Nothing's going to happen to them or us," her father explained.

"And what if they win? I could never feel proud of their victory because I wasn't there!" Gavroche exclaimed really frustrated.

"One day you'll fight for what you want and you're going to be able to measure the risks, but that day it's not today," Madame Lafévre simply answered.

The day was spent that way; in such quietness it made everybody nervous. Éponine and Gavroche were constantly checked upon, which made them really mad. Éponine was getting hopeless and she felt her heart was coming out from her chest every time someone passed near her house.

The worst fear was when the National Guard advanced through the streets displaying their heavy armament and shouting in the name of the King, our Lord. Éponine had to see the killing of a young boy who shouted that the king wasn't sovereign in front of her house and it brought her to tears in such a horrible way that her father prohibited from being near the windows and they were all shut.

At night, when their parents retired to their room and Éponine and Gavroche were taken to her room, she had a crazy idea brewing in her mind and playing around. She had planned to escape to the barricade but never brought herself to propose it seriously until Gavroche did.

"Madame Louise, 'Crecia, papa and mama are asleep right?" he whispered.

"I'm guessing they are 'Roche,"

"Would you go with me to the barricade 'Ponine?"

"How do you want us to escape? Do you imagine the amount of servants that we have in the doors?" she asked, unconvinced for she wanted to escape too.

"What I'm thinking is crazy…but listen to me. We can jump from this window all right?"

"I'm ready to leave…Oh 'Roche but how do you want me to go dressed this way? I would be good for nothing in the barricade," Éponine pointed out.

"That's why I'm going for some of papa's clothing, I'll come back with at least two pairs of clothes. Once outside, we'll go to the gardener's house. We know Monsieur Pavel left today, but I don't think all the servants do. You'll change there and we'll take some of papa's personal armament to the barricade, you know he saves it there," Gavroche proposed.

The plan seemed to logical, so simple that Éponine asked herself how could her little brother think about it so accurately.

"Alright, bring the clothing but be careful," she said.

"I always am," he said toothily before leaving silently.

He arrived minutes later with three pairs of boots, pants, shirts, coats and hats.

"Just in case some of them are too big or too small for you," he explained.

She smiled at him and wrapped some of the sheets of her bed to the window to help them descend. Éponine took off her shoes and wrote a note to her parents in case they found out while Gavroche descended first. Her heart was pounding faster than ever and she evoked the feelings of the day she ran away from the Thénardiers, such a remote day in her past.

Éponine did a signal to her and she threw all the clothing he had brought her before decending herself, which was actually not as hard as she had believed it was.

They ran to the gardener's house and Éponine took her time cutting a bit the shirt and pants to make them somewhat her size. She fixed her hair inside a hat and put on boots and a coat.

"Hurry 'Ponine, you're not going to a social party!" Gavroche said to her.

Éponine folded the other two pairs of clothing as she figured out she could lend them to one of the revolutionaries and put them just above the guns and ammunitions that Gavroche had collected.

They left walking slowly and sighed in relief when they officially stepped outside the Lafévre property. They heard the gunshots from downtown and Gavroche had to calm his sister because the sound made her crazy. They walked for a while until someone from an alley started calling for them.

"Sirs! Sirs! Please help me sirs!" a girl shouted while walking out of the alley and standing, frightened in front of them.

Éponine felt pity for the girl; she looked so sweet and yet so lost, like she didn't belong to that place. Although Éponine didn't mix either with the Parisian streets, she could blend better. But the girl they had in front, she was a blonde porcelain doll with blue eyes that didn't belong anywhere.

"Sirs…do you know where does Mademoiselle Éponine Lafévre lives? I know it's very late and improper but I really need to talk to her," the girl said.

Gavroche and Éponine looked at each other in confusion. Who was the girl and why was she searching for her? Éponine took off her hat and looked at the girl.

"I'm Éponine. Who are you?"

"Cosette Fauchelevent. Marius told me about you. He told me you were his friend. I need to know if you can take me to him. Please. I beg you. He said goodbye to me today but I cannot resign myself to that," she pleaded, her eyes watery.

"Mademoiselle…sincerely don't know what to answer to you," Éponine said.

"Please," she pleaded once more.

"Change yourself to this clothing but please mademoiselle promise me you won't do anything crazy. If something happens to you it will officially be my fault I don't want to carry that weight," Éponine answered and Gavroche handed the clothing to her.

"Thanks," she said with a sweet smile, "Nice to meet you, by the way."

Soon, the three of them where walking in between the alleys of Paris, talking in whispers and being guided by the various sounds of the night.

"So…what are you doing in the barricade?" Cosette asked.

"We're just taking care of the wellbeing of our friends," Éponine answered softly.

"More like the wellbeing of Enjolras," Gavroche said in a loud whisper and Cosette giggled.

"I'm not! I do have friends in that barricade," Éponine said.

"Yes…such a close friend yesterday she cried for him," Gavroche cleared out.

Before anybody could say anything else, they found the barricade. They hid themselves good enough while they checked and it turned out they were on the side of the National Guard, who was firing to kill. Éponine grew tense and clutched Cosette's hand in hers, who tried to calm her with a soft whisper but soon, when someone shouted Marius' name, Cosette was the one who needed to be calmed.

Gavroche found the way to arrive to the other side of the barricade through the alleys and the girls followed him. He ran wildly when finding the light and seeing a bunch of known faces; they were on the revolutionary side.

"Cosette, go and seek for Marius. Please avoid talking as much as you're able to, or they'll find you quickly," Éponine advised, "and remember what you promised me, nothing crazy please."

Cosette walked trying to be unnoticed and being actually very good at it. She was silent and picked up everyone's way of walking just by observing until she finally found Marius, who was being healed by Joly, and took his hand, which everyone saw as very weird.

Éponine, on her side, felt in Dante's inferno. There were so many injured and so much blood around that it made her nauseous. It stank to sweat and the tension was very high although, at the moment, the fire had ceased.

She walked around with the bag full of armament she had brought and before she could do anything, Enjolras asked for her identity. She looked at him, trying to see every detail she had ever missed of his face.

"I'm nobody," she said covering her face and making her voice as deep as she could.

"Need an identity, Mr. Nobody," Enjolras said with irony and an unhidden discomfort.

Éponine handed in the bag with armament, to make him realize she was on their part and he knelt to check what the bag contained. He called for Combeferre who took the bag away and he nodded at her, not even realizing that the disguised man was Éponine.

He turned to leave but she realized something she hadn't seen before; Énjolras was injured. His shirt had been ragged in the bottom part and there he had a bloodied bandage that needed to be changed very soon or it would be infected.

"You're injured," she said without even trying to disguise her voice and with her head up high for him to see her.

"Éponine?" he asked while looking at her in disbelief.

She took off her hat once again and her hair felt like a cascade down her back. She looked at him seriously.

"You're here," he said with a bit of preoccupation and excitement in his voice.

"You're injured," she repeated gently while pulling him to an alley so nobody saw them talk.

* * *

**Thanks for all of your comments! :) I really loved them! Here's a new chapter for you...I hope you don't get disappointed with it. Thank you once again for reading and commenting! **

**With love, **

**-Cami **


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"Éponine?" he asked while looking at her in disbelief.

She took off her hat once again and her hair felt like a cascade down her back. She looked at him seriously.

"You're here," he said with a bit of preoccupation and excitement in his voice.

"You're injured," she repeated gently while pulling him to an alley so nobody saw them talk.

"What are you doing here?" he asked finally, when they were far enough to hear and see what was going on without being heard or seen.

"It's weird that you ask that…now let me check that injury," she said trying to reach for the extremely bloodied bandage.

"NO!" he exclaimed roughly while taking both of her hands and immobilizing her. Their bodies were close together and so were their faces, they could feel each other's breathing and that was comforting for both of them.

"I just want to see…that you're fine," she said in a soft whisper.

"No, I don't care about it. I don't care about many things today. For God's sake I'm leading the revolution…. I don't need nannies! I'm totally fine, if that's your concern. Besides, you didn't bother in my wellbeing yesterday when I spent my whole night waiting for you in the alley and you laughed inside your house. You knew it was crucial for me. You knew I had to swallow my pride, which weights a whole lot in my life, to go there, to write that letter and you, you didn't care!" he reproached, looking at her severely.

"Enjolras. It was my father…. he had us locked inside the house since Gavroche came with the news of General Lamarque's death. Yesterday I was in my room, pleading to 'Crecia so she let me go and see you and even this morning, they wouldn't let me out and I swear I was dying. With Gavroche we managed to escape when everyone felt asleep," she said locking her eyes, sparkly due to the forming tears and the fear, with his that seemed so deep and determined, "and I'm not going back unless you're coming with me."

Enjolras looked at her face, contracted because of fear but with the determination of truth plaguing her expression. He tried to search for a sign that told him she was lying but he couldn't find any. Instead, he remembered that vision he had in which Éponine was killed in the barricade and his face turned pale and his expression conveyed pure preoccupation.

Without hesitating or thinking, Enjolras joined his lips with Éponine's in a kiss they both had longed too much. She deepened the kiss, their lips moving in sync as they hugged each other tightly. Unconsciously, some tears jumped from Éponine's eyes as she thought she might never kiss Enjolras again.

He stopped kissing her lips only to rest his own lips on those tears to stop them from damaging her beautiful demeanor. Then, he rested his forehead on Éponine's. Only he knew how much he had wanted this moment to happen and it was so immeasurable that he thought it was abnormal until he could fulfill that wish and he understood simply how different it was with her by his side.

They both forgot for a moment what were the conditions surrounding them and dedicated to look into each other's eyes, while their souls intertwined with the touch of their hands and a smile played in the corner of their lips.

Suddenly, Enjolras remembered everything and between kisses, as to make his words less severe, scolded her.

"You've been very stupid in coming here. You're father was right…you should've stayed 'Ponine," he said between kisses, "this is worst than inferno. You cannot stay, I won't let you stay."

"You won't make me leave unless I'm with you," she said putting her hands on his cheeks.

"Éponine don't make this harder for any of us. I must fight but you're too good for this place," he said and she simply refuted with her head.

"You're such a difficult girl," he said kissing her forehead.

"That means I'm staying with you," she said.

Then they heard Courfeyrac searching for Enjolras. The firing had restarted and there were many injured to defend. Enjolras had to go and Éponine was determined to follow him.

"I must leave but you stay here. I promise I'm coming back but don't go out there or I'll be very, very mad with you," he said and kissed her lips once more as a goodbye.

Éponine then remembered somewhere in the middle of the screams and despair, her brother and Cosette were both protagonists of everything. She couldn't stay there in the alley just waiting. Éponine put on her hat once again so nobody recognized her, although it was completely impossible, and ran to where the action was taking place.

She found Gavroche sitting in the frame of a high window and waving the flag while singing the song of the revolution. The National Guard could see him and he was such an easy target! He wasn't paying attention to anyone apart from the revolutionaries so somebody could just shoot him without compassion. Éponine almost felt she would die. She started screaming but her brother wouldn't even look at her.

"GAVROCHE! COME HERE!" He finally saw her and offered her the best of his smiles while waving the flag at her.

Meanwhile, one of the many uncompassionated armed men from the National Guard had spotted him and was starting to load his gun when Éponine decided to climb to the window.

Said man was preparing himself, set to hit Gavroche on his shoulder when he saw Éponine's strange figure climbing to the boy's side, taking him by both shoulders and moving him from the position he was; unaware of the situation, Éponine took Gavroche away from the dangerous range in which the bullet could've hit him.

The man shot anyways, just for the heck of it and it missed Éponine's forehead by a few centimeters, which was enough to make them both shout nervously. To their luck, their voices drowned in the pool of expressions that down there were being exchanged by the revolutionaries and the military.

Éponine took her brother and pushed him to the bar were the injured were being helped.

"What were you thinking Gavroche? Seriously what were you thinking? It's not a game out there, we're not in Le Café Musain anymore, this is real and the injury that bullet would've done to you could've been deadly! Are you listening to me? DEADLY!" She scolded and Gavroche looked at her very sorry, he knew how much she loved him and he offered her his arms to hug her.

"And Cosette? Where's Cosette?" Éponine asked with a new concern after breaking the hug.

Somewhere in the bar, an almost unconscious or half asleep Marius had been laid over a table and all that time, Cosette, still disguised, had been clutching his hand tightly, cleaning his forehead with a wet handkerchief and, when nobody was looking, giving him kisses on his cheek.

At the mention of her name in such a voice of concern, Marius opened his eyes and looked around. He had been injured while trying to protect his best friend, Courfeyrac and it hurt but wasn't as bad as many of the other men around him. He wouldn't die for it at least. Joly had cleaned the injury, which, as he wanted to remember himself, was just as scratch but the lost of blood made him a bit dizzy and they recommended him to stay inside, at least until something worse happened.

He saw Gavroche and smiled at him while, at the same time, asked for an explanation regarding his singular companion. Then, he realized someone had his hand and he looked at the boy who owned the pale hand that clutched his. He tried to separate it as he felt very awkward and expressed it that way.

"Sorry, my friend, but I don't like men that way…and I have a fiancée waiting for me," he said and Cosette, Éponine and Gavroche giggled loudly.

Cosette then took his hand and kissed it gently, like she had done so many times in her garden, when he came to visit. He soon recognized it was his Cosette and stared at her unequivocal blue eyes with love and awe.

"Cosette…why are you here?" he asked frowning.

"I'll stay here with you," she answered.

"You cannot be here. I told you to wait for me. Who brought you here? Did you escape?"

"It's simple, my beloved Marius. I'm staying here with you until you leave, the revolution's successful or we die," she answered and Marius' expression changed into widened eyes and a completely opened mouth; he didn't know Cosette had any notion about what could happen to him in the barricade. She just looked so unreal it seemed the world around her faded to her reality.

"Who brought you here?"

"I searched for Éponine, who luckily enough was coming here on her own. I had to convince her to bring me under the promise I wouldn't do anything crazy."

"COMING HERE IS CRAZY TO BEGIN WITH! Where's 'Ponine? I'm sure she shouldn't be here either!" he exclaimed while Éponine, from the other side, said hello with her hand.

Before he could say something else, Combeferre entered to the room furiously. He was sweating and breathing heavily. He carried Éponine's bag and threw a gun at Marius' direction. He also gave one to Éponine and one to Cosette, not knowing who they were.

"The barricade's falling _mon ami. _I'm sure you're well enough to defend your life until the end, aren't you? It was a pleasure to be your friend Marius. Also a pleasure to have fought with you, Messieurs," he said solemnly before leaving so Marius could fix himself before going out to the fight.

Cosette let out a small cry after the man left and she jumped into Marius' arms that received her anxiously. He kissed the girl's forehead before standing up and walking outside to see the situation, which was indeed frightening.

With noise, bullets flew in all directions. The National Guard climbed the barricade, shooting and descending from the roofs while shouting in the name of the "King Our Lord, Napoleon III" and calling for "civil order". Before Marius could do anything, most of the men that supported the revolution had been killed or had abandoned the fight. Les Amis were the last standing, their heads held as high as their guns. They all looked at each other with a feeling of longing that somehow meant their farewell. Enjolras had the banner in his hands and he wasn't letting go, he would die for his cause, he would die for Patria.

Suddenly, when he saw Marius to have their eye contact farewell, certain uneasiness sparked inside and he remembered Éponine was waiting for him in the alley. He needed to see her again, just one more before dying. He needed to tell her to run away because the barricade had fallen and the cause had lost itself among the many lives that didn't survive the massacre in its name. He needed to tell her he still felt he needed to die for it and that he would die in the hands of those bastards in the name of freedom, but he would die tranquil if she was sleeping at home, if he gave her one more kiss.

He commanded his friends to run for refugee at the bar, to win some time to say goodbye to Éponine. They all ran to the bar and at the moment the National Guard ceased the fire, apparently some urgent last minute news had arrived.

Éponine and Gavroche were there along with Cosette and when everyone entered and ran to the upper floors nobody minded their presence and actually felt grateful to see "new" faces for it meant their cause wasn't only left in their shoulders to carry. Marius instead, took Cosette by her arm and Éponine and Gavroche followed because she hadn't seen Enjolras among les amis and because she wanted to take Gavroche away from all the hellish paraphernalia and the danger.

What they all saw as they crossed to the alley was depressive. The mighty and unbreakable barricade was halfway to become splinters, although it was tall enough for them to run to the alleys without being seen. Among the many corpses that were respectfully putted on the sides, Éponine recognized the faces of Jean Prouvaire and Feuilly, two of les amis who were always very friendly and respectful to her.

Éponine tried to control herself from the feelings that were attacking her, for although they were not very close to her, they were still friends and their lost was still something sad. Gavroche, who had known them a bit better and was closer to them cried; he was too much of an idealist to understand that something so fair as their cause would be answered with so much violence.

On her part, Éponine didn't recognize Enjolras among the many dead and that was something that in a crude and sad way relieved her a bit.

"WHO'S THERE?" A voice from the other side thundered but this time, there was no response from anyone.

"YOU SEE? THE BABIES WENT TO SLEEP!" the voice repeated and soon it was followed by many laughs.

Marius half walked, half ran through the alleys with them. He would take Cosette, Éponine and Gavroche to a place in which he was certain they could walk without any problems and he would return, for as much as he wanted to stay with Cosette, with les amis to a secured death.

Suddenly, Éponine, who was the most disorientated from the group, bumped with somebody who felt right on top of her. When she opened her eyes, she met those blue eyes that would always melt her heart, Enjolras' eyes. She hugged him tightly, still under his huge figure and also held her in his arms for he thought she was dead and that had been the worst feeling since he had understood his cause was lost.

They both stood up and hugged once again. Éponine sobbed while her head searched for some protection in Enjolras' chest. He wanted her to stay calmed, to look at him. He was driven by such an impulse he started kissing her yet again with more passion and more feeling than before.

This didn't pass unnoticed by anyone but Cosette made both Marius and Gavroche be quiet for she knew how much they needed this moment.

They hugged once again and Enjolras spotted Marius for the first time. He blushed and thanked God for darkness, so nobody, not even Éponine, could see him so vulnerable.

"What are you doing Marius?" he asked, still hugging Éponine.

"Enjolras, I wanted to take Éponine, Gavroche and…my Cosette out of here. I wasn't going to leave the fight, I swear. I wanted to make sure they'll make it home alive," he explained.

"Marius, go with them. Take your mademoiselle, who I'm very pleased to meet…but I'm sorry it has to be under these conditions, home and please, make sure Gavroche and 'Ponine arrive safely to their house. I'm sure it's better this way," he said and both Éponine and Gavroche protested.

"I'm not leaving! I'm not leaving without you Enjolras!" Éponine said in despair.

"I'm not leaving the cause!" Gavroche exclaimed.

"Gavroche…I promise if we get out of this day alive, personally I'm going to make a banner with your name as contributor for our victory. But you don't want your sister to die in this filthy place, don't you?" he said hopelessly and Gavroche said no with his head as a response.

"Very well, just take her home please and calm her down, she needs you," he said and kissed the girl's forehead.

"NO! ENJOLRAS I SWEAR I'M NOT LEAVING!" She screamed and then tried to get off of Enjolras' embrace but he was stronger than her and he wanted her near for the last time.

"Come with me then," she begged looking into his eyes, "come with me since you won't let me stay."

"You're asking me something impossible my dear,"

He kissed Éponine again, softly and everlasting until he heard in the distance _les amis_ shouting.

"Thanks for making me feel this way 'Ponine," he whispered in her ear before letting her go.

Éponine was devastated. Her feet couldn't maintain her standing and she felt to the floor kneeling while crying for Enjolras desperately. She had felt so many horrible things in her life but she hadn't cried this much for somebody. Enjolras was definitely someone that deserved her tears and the stir of her emotions for she loved him too much.

Enjolras turned around not to see her crying anymore. He was also very sad, and destroyed inside; it was the first time he had ever felt so depressed when making a decision. He tried to forget about it while he walked towards the almost extinguished barricade of his dreams.

Marius and Gavroche had almost to push Éponine for her to move. They all walked in silence through the alleys until the finally found the streets and a fiacre willing to take them all to two different places for the price of one.

At the corner of the Lafévre property they made the fiacre stop. Gavroche said goodbye to Cosette and Marius and whished them a goodnight while Éponine looked blankly to infinity.

Éponine and Gavroche arrived to the gardener's house and Éponine changed into the dress she had before leaving. She was summed in an uneasy silence that consumed her slowly.

"Hey…'Ponine. I know it's hard for you, maybe harder than what it is for every one of us but…please you cannot arrive to the house that way,"

She tried to smile at him and Gavroche hugged her softly.

"Let's get going 'Roche,"

They saw no point in going back through the window since they were already at home safely so they simply walked through the back door without taking any precautions and still, they weren't seen.

They never realized how late it was until the sun started showering that infamous morning. Éponine and Gavroche would always remember the moment in which they set a foot in the hallway and various members of the National Guard forced the door open in their fury to enter at any cost.

* * *

**Hello again! :) I'm sorry for being so late with this chapter! I swear I had it for Friday but my internet connection is kind of sucky so I didn't get to have internet access since thursday night! D: Thanks for all of your lovely reviews, I really appreciated them and also for putting this story in favorite/alerts. The next couple of updates will take me more than usual because of school and because I'm trying to make justice to everything that's going to happen in them, I'm expecting a certain quality (I hope, like really crossing my fingers, for it to be good enough!). I hope you keep liking it and see you later with my next update. **

**Lots of Love**

**-Cami. **

**:) **


	16. Chapter 16

"Where's Jacques Lafévre?" a man, probably the chief, said in a very deep and contemptuous voice.

Éponine walked towards the man while 'Crecia and Madame Louise, along with other five servants approached to the hallway in alarm.

"_Monsieur_ Lafévre's not here," Éponine answered in disguised calm, "he left two days ago, to attend some business. He didn't leave any direction or place to be found but I'm sure when he comes back he'll gladly attend you."

"In a proper hour and with a previous date," 'Crecia coincided with irony, "that door Monsieur, is really expensive."

The excuse was so intimately convincing that for a moment the man considered in sending someone to search for whom they had already baptized as "the traitor" abroad. But their lie faded as soon Monsieur Lafévre descended from the staircase unashamed. His wife ran behind him, begging him to stay at home, to escape and not to give himself to those _sons of dishonorable mothers and unknown fathers. _

"Here's the traitor," the man from the National Guard said and Monsieur Lafévre raised his gaze to look at his children sympathetically.

"He's not a traitor. He's honorable enough to bring himself to stand up in front of you who don't deserve his presence," Madame Lafévre said fearlessly and her husband thanked her with his reassuring smile.

"Take the traitor. Such a…brave defense you've got over here," he said amid laughter while other two men pushed disrespectfully Monsieur Lafévre out.

"Cecile, ma belle, calm down alright? Take care of our children. I love you all," he said and walked without giving a second glance to his family.

Madame Lafévre broke down and started crying while shouting her husband's name a couple of times. She had never been so desperate in her entire life and she had suffered a lot throughout the years. Since she was born, her father had shunned her; she was destined to be the boy that would maintain the family's honor and fortune but, not only had she been born a girl, but she had also taken the life of her mother, who had a hemorrhage while giving birth.

But she found Jacques when they both were little kids and since then, his loving company had been everything to her. After knowing him, even when life hit her hard, she had him and that was more than enough for her.

Now that he was brutally taken from her side, she felt lost in the world. What would she do without him?

Meanwhile, everyone, the servants included, started shouting and tried to block the door, which was completely useless against the "mighty" National Guard.

"Where are you taking him?" Gavroche asked furiously.

"He's going to die like a traitor along with the traitors from the barricade," the man said satisfied.

"The barricade has fallen, and the filthy scum that didn't die with it will be executed in an official act. This man included, you're all invited to see them die," he added with certain malevolent happiness before leaving.

Éponine felt like hell was consuming her inside. Who were those that survived to the brutality of the barricade? Was Enjolras with them? Anyways, he wouldn't be alive for too long, they were going to execute them.

Gavroche hugged his mother and helped her stand up, trying to take her to the living room. She looked so small, so helpless that even little Gavroche felt he needed to protect her.

Madame Lafévre felt sick and, by petition of everyone around her, sat down in the nearest couch but tried to stand up immediately. Éponine pushed her back sweetly and with a gesture told her to stay there. She obeyed like a scolded child and the servants thought their roles had been inverted with this _crisis_.

"Éponine I've got to visit someone very important," Madame Lafévre said in an almost inaudible whisper.

"No mama, stay here, later we'll go wherever you need," Éponine said between the tears, she still couldn't believe that her father would be killed by the National Guard and maybe also Enjolras and Grantaire if he wasn't dead already and the rest of Les Amis.

After realizing this, she cried even harder but saw everyone was looking at her and she had to be strong for the sake of her remaining family.

"Éponine…I must save Jacques,"

"Mama…where do you need to go? I'll go for you, I swear everything's going to be fine,"

"Oh my children! Look at you, both strong…capable of everything. I know you went to the barricade. Of course you went, I knew that since the beginning…. Éponine would you do me a favor?"

At this point, Éponine and Madame Lafévre were all alone. 'Crecia had sent everyone away to their bedrooms and she had stayed in the kitchen along with Madame Louise, just in case something was needed from them. Gavroche suddenly felt asleep in Madame Lafévres lap and she hugged him protectively.

"Just say it mama," she answered.

"There's so much you both don't know about your father and I. So many secrets we decided to keep. I hope you don't resent us for that…my dear, your father has a brother and he could help him. I'll tell you where to go," Madame Lafévre said.

"Who's him?"

"Inspector Javert," her mother whispered and Éponine's eyes widened.

"Papa's brother is Javert? Javert, the police inspector? That cruel man?" Éponine asked in confusion.

"Both of them separated their ways as soon as your fathered entered to university and Javert to police training. When their parents died he changed his name, he didn't want to be recognize as Jacques brother because he studied law and you know how he protects the revolutionary ideas. His reputation wasn't convenient for Javert. Before you arrived home, their contact was through letters a few times every month but Javert just cut the communication between them afterwards," she explained tiresomely.

"What makes you think such an uncompassionate men will help my father?"

"He's just very compromised with what he does. I am sure he'll help us. Tell him I sent you,"

Éponine nodded and prepared herself to leave. Her mother wrote his address in a napkin and she headed, very skeptical of the results of this interview, to Javert's home.

Monsieur Lafévre was taken to a carriage with no windows that was followed by more members of the National Guard than those that had entered to his house. He found the unsurprising fact that his three friends and collaborators with the revolution where also there.

"Good morning, Monsieur Lafévre," Monsieur Brunnes said with a humorless smile.

"Good morning, my honorable friends," he answered as they made space for him to sit down.

They pushed Monsieur Lafévre violently and disrespectfully before closing the door.

Monsieur Lapaditte helped him sit up and the carriage started moving. They looked miserable but at the same time wrapped in brightness due to the proudness of their actions.

"How many men do you think that escort us today?" Monsieur Lapaditte asked.

"About thirty or fifty something?" Monsieur De Lyon asked without trying to begin a conversation.

"Maybe," Monsieur Brunnes coincided.

"How many men do you think that survived the barricade?" Monsieur Lafévre asked.

"I wouldn't bet for more than ten," Monsieur De Lyon answered again.

"Look what we put ourselves into. Seriously what were we thinking?" Monsieur Brunnes asked, this time with a totally innocent smile on his face.

"We're finally dying for France," Monsieur Lapaditte answered with a shudder but smiled back to Monsieur Brunnes.

"We're going to die for the cause!" Monsieur De Lyon exclaimed.

"Would you believe it? When our turn came to defend our ideas, our parent sent us away…and now that we all thought everything was lost, that we would die without making any difference in this country…now this," Monsieur Lafévre said victoriously.

"So what about our kids? Our families?" Monsieur Brunnes asked, covering the sudden joy with a profound shade.

"I…doubt they wouldn't learn from this. I'm sure they both will be very proud of this event. When Gavroche goes to vote for a president, he's going to look up proudly and remember his papa contributed for it to occur," Monsieur Lafévre said solemnly.

"I'm sure all of our sons and daughters will think the same way. I'm sure," Monsieur De Lyon coincided.

"Don't you think…this is the way every honorable man should die? For his country? For the future? For his ideals? It's so beautiful, so frightening and still so tempting," Monsieur Lapaditte said.

"Look! Joseph's poetical on his last day!" Monsieur Brunnes teased Monsieur Lapaditte and they all burst laughing out of nowhere.

The carriage halted immediately at the back gates of La Bastille. The four Messieurs solemnly descended through the same stairs the "worst criminals" of the French society walked by almost daily. The smell to dead and rotten entered through the nostrils of those gentlemen, that didn't belong to that scenario, with such a fury that it made their eyes cloudy.

The doors were closed and the morning lights faded through the door. The smell was worse as they walked. Soon, they were blindfolded and chained and splashing sounds followed every step they took. None of them wanted to guess the nature of the water that came up to their ankles but they could definitely imagine it just based on the putrefaction that the place emanated from the walls. The air was so heavy it weighed on their shoulders but the men walked with such a formality as if they were walking through the hallways of Versailles.

To them, walking through the deadly halls of La Bastille moments before being condemned to death penalty for treason was even more important than walking in the halls of the damned castle of an not sovereign and illegitimate king.

The guards pushed them with the back part of their guns, laughing at their "mightiness", making jokes about the revolution and still they held their heads very high, proud of being part of it.

At one part of the trip, were it stopped smelling as bad and they took their blindfolds off, a young official of minor rank asked them softly if they weren't afraid.

"Son…we'll die freely and that's the only way of dying in tranquility," Monsieur Brunnes answered with an inhuman serenity.

They continued being pushed until they walked through a door into a simple room with a desk and a wide window. It smelled better inside because the putrefaction was hidden under several infusions of vanilla and cinnamon. The environment tried to somehow recreate how would the room look like if it belonged to a highly recognized dignitary of some sort. It was all fake, an illusion for both the condemned and the owner of the room who, as it turned out, was just another commoner with airs of a king.

They took off their blindfolds and their chains and made them sit down with a lack of courtesy that didn't surprise anybody. A short man with an extremely pompous moustache entered through another door and sat down behind the desk.

"You all know why you are here. If you don't, _try_ to convince me that this was a mistake and maybe in a few months I'll have the painful and unpleasant task of telling your family you were indeed innocent," he said touching his temples and with a bored expression.

"Well," he continued, "since there's just silence, I'll proceed. You have been followed for a couple of weeks up to this point…we know your implicated in all of what happened yesterday and you're going to pay. You were already condemned by an emergency and non-assisted trial in which you were declared guilty and deservers of death penalty. Since we have _war enemies _from the riots you provoked, you'll die with them."

"Any doubts?" he asked after shoving at their faces the papers that declared they were enemies and condemned to death like the worst of criminals.

A sepulchral silence took over the room and the man signaled for the other men to take them away. The Messieurs left the room, once again being pushed by the _officials _with their guns.

"All of these people, they're detestable!" Monsieur De Lyon exclaimed too high.

They stopped after another door and they were pushed inside, the door closed and, except for a candle isolated by several columns of metal, everything was summed in darkness.

"Who are you?" a voice said from somewhere in the room.

"Are you from the barricade?" Monsieur Lafévre asked.

"Monsieur Lafévre? I'm Enjolras,"

"Enjolras, you're alive! Oh! Who else's here? I'm Joseph Lapaditte,"

"Monsieur Lapaditte…we're all here, Combeferre, Grantaire, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Joly and I. Feuilly and Jean Prouvaire…they died at the barricade," Enjolras explained a bit hushed and sad for he felt like the direct responsible of everyone's death.

"Is there somebody else? What about Marius?" Monsieur Brunnes asked.

"Yes, Monsieur Wolstenholme…who helped us and stayed until the end. He's here and Marius, I told him to leave," he explained.

"Who's Monsieur Wolstenholme, I don't have the pleasure to meet him," Monsieur De Lyon said.

"It's me. I actually went in search of somebody," Jean Valjean, hidden under the name of "Monsieur Wolstenholme", answered.

"Whom were you searching for?" Monsieur Lafévre asked.

"My daughter's fiancé...actually I was hoping to find my daughter there, thanks God I didn't," He answered.

"You know? My daughter was also at the barricade, I really…really tried that she didn't go but you see it was actually worse than opening the door for her," Monsieur Lafévre said with a smile as he remembered Éponine and Enjolras felt himself shudder too much with her memory.

"I guess, our situations are very different," Valjean said very coldly.

"Not a bit. Our daughters had a purpose, didn't they?" Monsieur Lafévre said and the opening of the door interrupted their conversation as they kicked somebody in. Whoever he was, he resisted way too much.

Marius, who they had kicked inside the room, started screaming and crying really hard for Cosette. They had separated him from her after all they had passed; they had survived the barricade for crying out loud!

"Where's my daughter?" Valjean said rapidly and Marius looked up immediately.

"Where's Cosette?" he asked again.

"She's fine…Monsieur Fauchelevent," he answered.

"NO SHE WASN'T BECAUSE SHE WAS WITH YOU!"

"Monsieur, Marius saved her from the barricade, I assure you…if he tells you the girl's fine, she is indeed," Enjolras exclaimed softly, taking Valjean by the arm before he searched for Marius' body and killed him before his hour.

"Marius how the hell did they found you?" Bahorel asked.

"I don't know…I just don't know, I was arriving to the Rue Plumet to leave Cosette at home. When we arrived and she was about to close the door these men of the National Guard came and took me and she shouted and the National Guard simply ran pushing me and made her close her door," he answered in despair.

"Hey Monsieur… Fauchelevent? Didn't you introduce yourself as Monsieur Wolstenholme?" Monsieur Brunnes asked inquisitive.

"My family issues…they are complicated," Valjean explained coldly and stopped talking while thinking in despair what an irony his life turned out to be. He had been in prison for nineteen years. He had been persecuted by the police inspector Javert for the following years and now, convicted and about to be sentenced to death penalty for being in the middle of a street fight he had been involved because of a last minute decision. He also thought in Cosette. What would happen to her? Again and orphan? And this time, things would be very hard for her because apparently the love of her life was going to die too.

He cried in silence, covered by the darkness you aren't ashamed of. He was tired of being strong every time and this was the perfect moment to reconcile him with life.

At the same time and under the same circumstances, everyone else cried for their own reasons. Monsieur Lafévre cried for his family, he was indeed missing them and he knew Cecile would die alive. He felt guilt, guilt for feeling proud of what he did.

Enjolras cried for many things. He was scared for the first time since the revolution started. He was scared because he didn't want to die for Patria without seeing Éponine…because he wandered whether she would be there at the moment of the execution and because he realized he loved her, he had realized she meant more to him than a kiss or a letter or an especial moment. She was the love of his life. She was actually more than anything he could describe in mere words. He took from his jacket the crumbled and broken piece of paper with Sonnet Number Eighteen that had been accompanying him and put it in his chest, near his heart were Éponine rested and wiped his tears as to save them for himself.

Marius cried for he couldn't believe his opportunity to be happy with his girl had faded from his hands so quickly. He couldn't remember her smiling or glowing in her garden like he always had, he could just see her crying in her doorway and shouting for him in despair. He saw heartbreaking images that stole the life from his body; he saw Cosette suffering because of him.

Grantaire felt his life had passed in between the bottom of each bottle he held in his hands. He felt he could've done something important with his life as all his friends did, he could've left his personal mark in the cause instead of just being a drunken idiot.

"If we get out of this…. I'll stop being a drunken idiot," he said and everyone, including Valjean and Les Messieurs, laughed.

"If we get out of this, we're all becoming drunken idiots 'Taire," Combeferre said and everyone simply stopped laughing to think, once again in what was going to happen.

A few blocks away, Éponine was knocking in the door of Inspector Javert's home. She couldn't believe she was doing this, she couldn't believe she had to rely on this despicable person to save her father and Les Amis. Over all, she couldn't believe that Javert was technically her uncle. How could they avoid telling her things as such?

While she waited outside, Éponine wondered what else her parents had to hide but her thinking was stopped by the door opening and revealing a pale and old woman dressed with a green robe.

"Good morning," she said severely.

"Good morning," Éponine said, "Is this Inspector Javert's home? I need to talk to him urgently."

"Yes it is but he won't receive anybody until later and there's a waiting list mademoiselle," she said.

"Please, tell him is urgent. What I must say to him is no common business do you understand me Madame?" Éponine said while trying to avoid the woman closed the door.

"What's happening Greta?" a male's voice was heard from the distance.

"Monsieur Inspector, there's a girl wanting to bug you at this hour, told her to leave," Greta answered.

"Good, I cannot understand why _they_ think I have no life," Javert said and Éponine acted quickly before the door was closed completely.

"Cecile Lafévre sent me," she said quickly and Javert was suddenly so interested in the girl that he opened the door himself.

"Who are you?" he asked looking at Éponine skeptically.

"Let me in and I'm going to explain you everything," she said.

Javert motioned for Greta to let the girl in and sit her in his bureau while he put himself presentable. Éponine sighed as he entered and sat in front of her. She guessed what was to come wasn't going to be too nice or too pleasant.

* * *

**Well...this is a very loong chapter, I'm sorry for that. I'm going to make them shorter, I promise ;) Thanks for reading/commenting or putting in favorite/alerts.**

**With love,**

**-Cami**


	17. Chapter 17

**"**Now…would you tell me who are you?" he asked after scrutinizing her for a few minutes.

"I'm Éponine Lafévre, daughter of Jacques and Cecile Lafévre," she said and blushed with his surprised face. She couldn't feel more of a stranger in the life of the Lafévres in this moment.

"It's impossible…Cecile, she couldn't have children," Javert said.

"I didn't grow in her womb…but they saved us, my brother and I, from a life of hunger and misery eight years ago and we've been their children since," she explained in a whisper.

"Alright, I understand. Cecile was crazy for having kids…I knew they would recur to _that_ at some point," he said thoughtfully.

"Sir, I came for something important," she said.

"What is it?"

"I'm sure you know what happened yesterday," she started.

"I know, what's your point," he said.

"Sir my papa's going to be killed today because of his connection with the revolution and the barricade. Your brother's going to be killed sir and my mother's going to die with him, I come to beg for your help," she said helplessly.

Javert covered his eyes with his hand and sighed.

"I knew this was going to happen," he said with a frustrated gesture.

"That means you're going to help?" she asked hopefully.

"No. Mademoiselle what you ask me is an impossible. I'm just a police inspector; I don't have any power within the boundaries of the National Guard. There's no way I could help you. I'm sorry," he explained and she looked at him desperately.

"Sure there are ways monsieur, less orthodox, but still those are ways too. Look monsieur, I'm asking you to save my papa, to save _your brother. _Is your code so stiff you're not going to be compassionate about your own brother?" she said standing up with tears in her eyes.

"Sit down," Javert insisted, disconcerted to see such a display of emotions.

Everyday, Javert opened his office for people to come and complain to him. Most of them came to ask for favors or tasks he didn't have to intention or the power to accomplish and this particular case called his attention because his own brother was involved. He was didn't know what to do and this girl, technically his nephew, was getting to his nerves with all of her emotions. What she said next drove him completely insane.

"Maybe you don't know this and you don't care…but sharing the cell and the fate with my father, there's also my…fiancé. His name is Enjolras," she lied with conviction because she hoped that part would become true one day, "and also with them, my friends. Not even one of them is older than twenty-one, Monsieur Javert; you're going to let the National Guard step over the lives of so many people? Will you Monsieur?"

"You're asking me for a riot! You're asking me to do the same they did yesterday. You're asking me to do the same thing they're going to kill them for! You, mademoiselle, are crazy," he said while thinking that indeed Éponine had lost her mind.

"I'm asking you to save the lives of noble people who wanted to make the world a better place, including your brother Jacques Lafévre who at heart is a hardcore revolutionary," she said and Javert sighed again, not convinced of what he was going to do.

"Mademoiselle, I know they are going to be killed today at noon. They want this to be fast so it doesn't cause a commotion among the masses. I'm going to be at 4:00 pm with my most loyal men at the back part of the Lafévre property and you'll have to make sure there's a distraction so we arrive in time to the killing. We get there, we free them and we try there's the least commotion it can be, all right?" he explained to her, not knowing why really was he promising that and trying to convince himself it was all because of his brother, although in the bottom of his heart he knew that Cecile's involvement with the petition had pushed him.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Éponine answered with a smile, "I'm going to prepare everything."

She said goodbye to him and before she left, he added something.

"Tell Cecile not to go…you know it could be dangerous," he said and she nodded in response.

"I'm going to die today," Javert whispered to himself when he found himself completely alone.

He put his face in both of his hands and started sobbing. Javert had nothing to lose for everything he had was already lost. He had lost his family when a plague took away both of his parents. He had lost his brother when he decided to relate himself with the revolution. He had lost the opportunity to honor the memory of his parents with his good name when he changed his last name for the sake of his reputation. He had lost the woman destined for him when, as a kid, Jacques won her heart.

How heart breaking it was for him that Cecile, that kind-hearted woman that had to be his, asked him to die for the sake of his brother. What an irony!

Éponine left Javert's house to try and find Marius and Cosette, to tell them what was happening and advice them what she was going to do. As she walked to the Rue Plumet (which was the only thing she knew about Cosette's address), she imagined how hard it would be for Marius to know he would be the only one of Les Amis that would survive.

When arriving to the Rue Plumet she found that the street wasn't too crowded and that only one cottage actually stood in the street. Behind the metallic bars, Éponine immediately found Cosette, who was sitting alone in her garden, her eyes red after so much crying. Cosette was still dressed as a boy and looked so lost Éponine just thought the worst.

"What happened Cosette?" She asked from the other side.

Cosette didn't identify her immediately for the last night she had seen her differently in the dark alleys but today, dressed as a girl and with day light, she looked very pretty and elegant.

"Éponine? Éponine good you're here!" she said opening the door.

"What happened?" Éponine said taking her by the shoulders.

"They took Marius…we were arriving and they simply took him and pushed me home and didn't let me see him. They kicked him until he stopped resisting. I tried calling my papa but he wasn't at home and he hasn't arrived yet. Oh Sweet Lord! Éponine they said they're going to kill Marius!" She said with tears in her eyes.

"Cosette, they also took my papa…. and maybe Enjolras is also there," Éponine said wiping her tears away.

"Oh…Éponine I'm very sorry," Cosette answered, "I share all of your pain."

"Nothing's going to happen to them," Éponine promised and Cosette didn't understand.

"What…are you talking about? They're going to get killed…" Cosette asked.

"It's not a topic we should talk on the streets, specially on a day like today. Now come, you cannot stay here on your own," she said motioning Cosette to move quickly.

Cosette changed into a blue dress and followed Éponine through the streets. Éponine took a way through the place were the barricade had been just out of curiosity and they found all of the bodies placed on a single line. Some women cleaned the bloodied walls and floors without saying a single word. They both remembered the apocalyptic scene this street had been protagonist of throughout the night and the day didn't look much better.

Cosette urged Éponine to leave that place that scared them both to death.

They arrived to the Lafévre home where no word was said about the morning events. Madame Lafévre had finally been convinced to get some rest and everyone walked in tiptoes so she didn't wake up to the great suffering to come. 'Crecia and Madame Louise had already their black clothing on and had started covering the mirrors with black pieces of silk.

"Don't do that, papa isn't dead and he won't be," Éponine said taking away all the black clothes from the mirrors-

"Damned customs," she exclaimed while looking at both of them with disdain; she had nothing personal against them but what they were doing was simply too much.

Éponine even made them change into colored clothing, although she didn't share any detail of what she was going to do. Cosette and Éponine sat on the living room to talk alone and Gavroche joined them a few minutes later, greeting Cosette with a smile and guessing something wrong had occurred. Éponine looked at them severely and shared the plan.

"Cosette, you know I told you I had convinced somebody to help us," she began, "Gavroche, although she were asleep I must share these news with you too: we're going to save them all from death."

Gavroche wanted to remember all that had occurred as part of a horrible nightmare, like those he had regarding his past. No, he didn't want to face it but he knew Éponine was counting on him to do something he would definitely act like a young adult and not like a frightened kid, although they were all feeling that way.

"See…when they're about to kill them in the square of the condemned in front of La Bastille, I'm coming in with a group of men lead by Javert. We're taking them away to a save place. To begin with, they're coming home because is the nearest place," Éponine said.

"Sure but it's also a very predictable place, don't you think?" Cosette asked, which made Éponine smile.

"That's what I thought. So the servants and my mother -and this, Gavroche, you'll have to be in charge of- are going to be prepared to receive them, help them with their needs and then prepare them for a trip. I don't know where to send them though," Éponine said.

"To the mountains," Madame Lafévre said while coming in and closing the door behind her.

"Mama," both Éponine and Gavroche muttered, standing up.

"Mama, you heard everything?" Éponine asked.

"What I had to hear," she answered and looked straightly to Cosette.

"Mother, this is Cosette Fauchelevent, a friend of ours and engaged with Marius Pontmercy who's a revolutionary," Éponine explained and Cosette smiled to Madame Lafévre.

"A pleasure mademoiselle," Madame Lafévre said offering her hand.

"A pleasure Madame," she answered while taking her hand.

"Well…let's continue. Mama says to the mountains, could you please explain?" Éponine said.

"Monseigneur accepts everyone in his convent. We could send them there at midnight. It's far enough and the road is normally concurred to outstand from the crowd," she explained, "after two days, they'll get going to the Lafévre property near the frontier with Spain."

"Mother could you take care of the details?" Éponine asked pacing around.

"Alright," she said leaving the room in a hurry.

"As for both of you, I have a task…" she tried to say, still not convinced she should put them in such a great danger.

"What is it?" Gavroche asked totally excited, which made Éponine sigh profoundly.

"We need a distraction…to make sure we're arriving with time, you know? It has to be big enough to make a delay but not to complicated so you both don't end up in major trouble," she explained.

"What if we make the people sing?" Cosette proposed and everyone agreed.

"Should I take the revolutionary banner?" Gavroche asked.

"Not at all!" Both girls exclaimed.

Gavroche stood to leave with a smile on his face but Éponine stopped him.

"Both of you, Cosette and Gavroche, are going to do that…and come back home immediately afterwards do you understand me?" she said and both of them nodded.

"Hey 'Roche…tell mother, to search for a doctor to receive everyone here…and ask Madame Louise to please prepare a lot of food…also tell mama not to go outside today do you understand me? Not to the square," she asked and he nodded before leaving with a smile on his face because he had thought how Éponine looked so much like Enjolras bossing around.

"Cosette…there's also something else I need you to do and I cannot because I'm not feeling emotionally well to do so," she said and Cosette listened with attention.

A few hours later, Cosette walked from the Lafévre home to La Bastille accompanied by Éponine who would be waiting for her in a nearby alley. Her task consisted in visiting the condemned to check who were the survivors and how many people were with them.

Cosette couldn't understand why was this so hard for Éponine but she had it explained in the way to La Bastille: Cosette was certain she would find Marius waiting for her but Éponine didn't know what to expect and it would be heartbreaking to feel disappointment before such a dangerous thing she was going to do.

They separated in front of La Bastille and Cosette presented herself as Madame Pontmercy (they figured out saying she was engaged to Marius wouldn't be so effective when trying to ask for a visit). Cosette had never seen herself as such but she got to like the words that came from her mouth so easily. She also added she wanted to see her husband and her brother in law, Enjolras, and they didn't deny her visit.

Captain Smith, the same man that had treated Messieurs Lafévre, Brunnes, Lapadite and De Lyon like trash, accompanied Cosette while insinuating to her the nauseating and vulgar proposal of converting her legal state from widow to mistress.

Her exalted vanity and love for Marius were enough to make her look at the man with such a disdain that made him quiet and the rest of the way the only noise heard was the sound of their shoes against the stone.

Once in front of the cell, he signaled the guards outside to enter and open the only small window for the first time since the prisoners had been there. The new light made them sick but they accustomed quickly as they saw Cosette, in such an angelic air, entering and closing the door behind her.

"I'm dead and I'm on heaven," Courfeyrac said from a corner.

"You're still alive and that's Marius' girl," Enjolras answered to him, extremely disappointed not to see Éponine with her.

Everyone knew Marius had a fiancée and they all knew her name was Cosette because it had escaped from his mouth a couple of times. They realized he was indeed in love but nobody ever knew the girl. Her reputation grew as a myth and her existence was even questioned. But there she was with such a royalty, such a natural highness and superiority that made them all sigh.

Marius stood up and jumped to her side immediately. He kissed her with despair, once, twice, he wanted to kiss her forever. He hugged her and they both sobbed in their embrace. She caressed his cheeks and brushed his hair with the palm of her hand.

"Oh my God, she's alive," Combeferre said and they all looked at her like she would disappear.

"Nice to meet you all," she said suddenly, when she realized they looked at her in wonder.

"Well…this is very awkward," Marius said before everyone stood up to greet her.

She meet Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Bahorel, Grantaire, Joly and, once again, Enjolras. They were all very comfortable with her because she didn't mind how dirty they were and hugged them immediately because she considered them all Marius' brothers.

Then, her eyes met with her father's eyes and she couldn't resist the cry that broke her chest in two. She didn't know her father was there. Why would he be there? He always told her not to go near them or near their cause, he clearly wasn't a mad supporter of the cause and yet he was there, sharing the cell and the fate.

Soon he stood up and hugged her. The other occupants of the room disappeared and it was only her papa and herself. He was consoling her like he would do when she was a kid.

"Why are you here?" she asked suddenly.

"I did what I had to do but apparently you also did," he answered with an apologetic smile.

She kissed his cheek and then kissed Marius once again. Greeted the four men seating at another corner and counted five times the amount of people in the room. She counted 12 all five times and then, even though she would've wanted to stay much longer, they called from outside.

"Have a good day," she said to everyone.

"More like have a good death, don't you think?" Said Courfeyrac, which humor hadn't decreased with the news of his death.

"You're going to be alright, I swear to God, you're going to be," she said with a smile.

"What do you mean Cosette?" Enjolras asked.

"I cannot share much…but there's a reason for me to be here. Do you really think…no I cannot say," she said and then had to go, leaving them doubtful.

"I guess…she's really sweet. Congratulations ami," Courfeyrac said to Marius once she left.

"I know…Jean Prouvaire would've loved to dedicate a sonnet to her eyes or her hair," Combeferre said with nostalgia.

Cosette joined Éponine with her heart galloping like a runaway horse.

"How many?" Éponine asked.

"12," she answered.

"Who?"

"Seven of Les Amis, Marius and Enjolras included, your father, other three gentlemen and…" she said, not able to bring herself to say the next part.

"What?" she insisted.

"My dad…he's also there," she said with tears in her eyes.

Éponine hugged Cosette, not finding the correct words to help her.

* * *

**So we got to Chapter 17! I was sharing this with a really good reader and is that sometimes I get like not wanting to continue with it because I'm a little disenchanted with it...but then I receive all the support this fics gets that I can simply not stop. I'll finish this and I promise I'll give the best of me for it to be great. **

**From the bottom of my heart, **

**-Cami **


	18. Chapter 18

By the time about thirty men from the National Guard opened their door, all of the condemned, in their personal last thoughts, had decided not to convey any sort of mournful countenance or weakness of spirit at the square they were going to be killed on. They were chained and blindfolded again, but they all knew exactly were would fate kiss them goodbye.

They couldn't see, but they noticed as they walked escorted by all of the National Guard to the square in front of La Bastille, that Paris had been silenced. The people around the square looked at the dirty and hopeless men with such a respect and solemnity everyone thought they deserved. They couldn't guess how many people had congregated at the square in their names. Women that hadn't been widows until the night before, men that had supported them at the Café but were too self-conscious to join them in barricade, children soaked with curiosity that remembered all of them in the streets. They all waited for a miracle.

Among them, Cosette and Gavroche stood together, their hearts almost exploding in their chests. Cosette saw her father and tried to interpret the pained expression on his face. She couldn't guess how afraid he was because she didn't know about the nineteen years he had spent under Javert's scrutinizing eye. One night amid chains and blindfolds had been enough to remind him everything.

She couldn't help the tears that were already falling from her eyes. Gavroche noticed them and told her to focus, which she did finding very ironic that a little boy was even more mature than her.

"These scum," Captain Smith started when everyone hushed, "are going to pay for the public disorder, the riots and the massive killing they had caused yesterday. And let this serve as an example so nobody dears to doubt about the iron hand of our great leader King Napoleon III."

The group of twelve men was placed over a wooden scaffold built just for the occasion, which was placed in front of a white wall that would intentionally be splashed with those people's blood as a brutal example.

Gavroche took Cosette's hand to ask her if they were going to start singing right then but she wanted to wait a few more minutes.

Two rows of fifteen men were placed in front of them, their guns already charged. Captain Smith already counting for them to fire at the same time when Enjolras, seeing himself completely lost, shouted:

"THIS MINUSCULE LIFE OF MINE FADES OUT FOR PATRIA. YOU INDOLENT PEOPLE, YOU'RE FATE WOULD BE DIFFERENT TODAY IF YOU WOULD'VE LISTENED…BUT STILL THERE'S HOPE. OH I GAVE MY EXISTANCE AWAY FOR YOU FRANCE, I GAVE UP ÉPONINE…"

And then, just then, Cosette started singing.

_"Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?" _

She had learned the song from Marius and she had heard it in the barricade, she knew most of the people knew it by heart. Both Marius and Valjean identified her voice although she wasn't very near to them and feared she was going to be shot immediately when Gavroche joined her and it was Monsieur Lafévre's moment to fear.

_"It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again."_

Also Enjolras feared Éponine was next singing and felt himself blushing because of what he said before. He wasn't even thinking when articulating his words and then thinking back at them, felt he could've said something more honorable as last words.

But Éponine didn't join them and instead, the people sang.

_"When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes."_

And they sang once again, with such a implacable might that the National Guard, including Captain Smith, stopped to listen in fear and curiosity.

_"Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?"_

"SHUT UP AND LEAVE OR WE'RE GOING TO SHOOT!" Captain Smith threatened but nobody stopped and soon the guns meant nothing to anybody. The next lines sparked with such a joy because now the condemned, leaving their surprise, started singing too.

_"Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free."_

A thunder broke the song in half, followed by a group of horses coming into the square. Éponine, dressed as a man, Javert and his men galloped quickly to the place, where they were received with much joy and more singing on part of the crowd, total inconformity and surprise on part of the National Guard and nothing at all from the revolutionaries because they were still blindfolded and singing.

_"Will you give all you can give, so that our banner may advance?"_

Captain Smith tried to reestablish order by telling his men to continue with the shooting without any setbacks but the men feared the retaliations of all those people against just thirty of them. Smith threatened them and they started firing to nowhere in particular, which made him send for more armed men while trying to defend themselves from those "rebels" in horses. While running, people kept singing.

_"Some will fall and some will live, will you stand up and take your chance?"_

With Javert, Éponine had agreed she would take the condemned away while he defended them from being killed so she advanced in a horse to the platform and, with the help of two other men, undid their chains with a knife. Instinctively they all took their blindfolds off and saw the scene in front of them.

Everyone was running from place to place, Smith couldn't still overcome his face of surprise and inconformity, men from the National Guard ran in distress from La Bastille to the square, a few gunshots were heard here and there and, from time to time, the mixed shouts brought up the words "Vive La France!" "Vive La Revolution!".

"What the hell's happening here?" Joly exclaimed.

"Just run!" One of the men that helped Éponine told them.

Monsieur Lafévre was the only one that could distinguish Éponine behind her disguise, which she had procured to be better than the last one. He looked at her in disbelief and she smiled at him.

"Papa," she said low so nobody else noticed, "run to the alley in front of our house and wait for me there…we already have a plan."

He smiled at her and guided the confused group through the alleys near the square. Enjolras and Combeferre protested because they wanted to stay and fight but they were all dragged for their own safety out of their place just as the last line of the revolutionary song was being singed.

_"The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France."_

Éponine descended from the platform and set the horse free. She nodded respectfully to Javert, who was looking at her from a distance while dueling with a man from the National Guard.

Éponine ran to her encounter with Cosette and Gavroche just at the moment in which the downpour soaked them to the bone.

Cosette and Gavroche had been standing completely immobile amid the crowd. They couldn't believe Éponine had convinced Javert to do such a riot and they didn't want to move until they realized the condemned were totally out of danger.

Éponine took them both by their hands and ran with them through different alleys than what the men had used. Still from a considerable distance they could hear the feast of gunshots that was being served at the square and Éponine felt it was all her fault. She was crying and sobbing and Cosette and Gavroche followed along.

"Stop! Stop! 'Ponine stop!" Gavroche commanded and she was just crying for no apparent reason.

"Are you alright?" Cosette asked while hugging her.

"Sister are you hurt or something?" he asked very worried.

"I'm alright," she said she took a quick decision, remembering Javert at the square, "listen, turn to the left and go straight until you see them, they're waiting for us there, take them to the house and follow the plan along."

"What about you?" Cosette asked confused.

"I must help before those bastards from the National Guard kill more people at the square," Éponine explained.

"NO! NO! I won't let you go 'Ponine!" Gavroche said and she simply smiled in response.

"Don't tell anybody I was at the square, it's better," she said while kissing both of them in the cheek and saying goodbye with her hand.

Gavroche and Cosette walked through the alleys in silence until they collided with the group that was waiting in the alley in which Éponine and Enjolras shared their first kiss.

The group was very thoughtful, most of them didn't know what was really going on but they were all excited thinking that maybe another group similar to Les Amis rose to save them and contribute in the revolutionary cause. Les Messieurs were in distress and Valjean was basically oblivious to everything that was going on, he just wanted it to end.

When they saw the figures of Cosette and Gavroche approaching, they all looked at them unsure of what to do. They all remained silent until Gavroche talked.

"Let's go home," he said and Marius ran to Cosette because he recognized her with the scarce light in the alley. They kissed once again and Cosette hugged him tightly as to believe he was really there. They were both desperate to be in each other's arms and right then and there they swore they wouldn't separate again, never.

Valjean was moved by this scene and walked to them to acknowledge them both as his son and daughter. But the scene didn't last longer because they were still in the street.

Gavroche moved to the house along with Cosette and they opened the back door for them to enter in small groups so their appearance didn't cause much disturbance in the street.

Once they were all inside, they closed doors and windows. The house was like another world. The candles were on and it was warm and quiet, like the universe stood still for them to enjoy a few minutes of peace.

They moved to the library, which didn't have any windows and they could move smoothly without being seen from outside. A doctor, known by the Lafévres since always, was waiting for them and, with the help of Joly, treated the wounded.

Some people like Enjolras and Marius had injuries since the barricade and, although they weren't too bad, they had to be treated immediately. Combeferre and Grantaire had been injured at La Bastille. Meanwhile, everyone else was given food. They were all seated in the library, talking while 'Crecia, Madame Louise, Madame Lafévre and a few other servants procured their wellbeing.

When every injured was treated and she made sure everyone had eaten at least twice, Madame Lafévre sat next to her husband and kissed his hand. She looked at all of her guests with a frown.

"Are you alright? Is there anything else you need?" she asked.

"No Madame, thanks for all your help. We promise tomorrow we'll leave to our houses so we don't make your house more of a mess," Enjolras said.

"Leave to your houses? Who mentioned something so imprudent!" she exclaimed, "of course you're leaving, all of you are…but to Monseigneur's convent in the mountains and then to the Lafévre property near the frontier with Spain. I already made the arrangements."

"We cannot leave Paris Madame! We must stay and fight!" Combeferre objected.

"You're going to leave for your safety," she insisted.

"We can be totally safe here," Courfeyrac offered.

"Yeah like you have been today, right?" she said furiously and stood up, "Messieurs, I don't want to sound like a scolding mother, but if I have to play that role, I will. We've already made a plan and you're going to follow it even if you want it or not."

Everyone was quiet afterwards.

"Cosette, I need you to stay with me," Madame Lafévre said maternally taking her hand before meeting Jean Valjean, who presented himself as her father and they engaged into a conversation about "young ladies".

'Crecia and Madame Louise prepared rooms for each guest and a few other servants fetched water for them to have a shower because they were all messy and dirty.

While they all got dressed and ready to sleep surrounded by luxury, Enjolras went to look for Madame Lafévre to ask her what his heart really wanted to know: where was Éponine. She hadn't been at the square or else he would've heard her voice. She hadn't been at the alley along with Cosette and Gavroche and she clearly wasn't at home.

His thoughts consumed him as he walked and he soon collided with Madame Lafévre who was walking in his direction.

"I'm sorry, Madame," he said.

"I know whom you're searching for," she said, "come with me."

For a moment Enjolras thought she would take him to Éponine but he convinced himself she wasn't at home when she started talking about her daughter to him.

"She's a good girl Enjolras…and her feelings are very sincere," she said and he nodded in agreement.

She walking in front of him but stopped suddenly in front of a door. She pushed it open and motioned him to enter. He recognized, just by the distinct smell of the room and the melodic peace it brought to him that the room belonged to his Éponine.

"Take a seat young man," Madame Lafévre said and so he did, looking around the room. The sobriety and elegance belonged to Éponine and everything he saw reminded him of her. The feeling was so intense he almost cried.

"I want to know…what are you feeling for my daughter?" she said looking at him severely in search of a hint of lies.

"Your daughter…she's simply incredible. See I have never been in love…and then I suddenly found her and she's so stubborn and at the same time so sweet and she knows what she's talking about. She's not common, she actually gave me a few lessons and I don't know what to feel…I just…want her by my side," he said smiling to himself and then feeling very ashamed.

"I see…listen, the only thing I'm going to ask you is that if you are going to be serious, then continue with her…and if not…please just be compassionate to her feelings and don't search for her anymore," she said standing up.

"By the way, I haven't seen her since this morning…but she told me to continue with this plan," she said and left Enjolras openmouthed.

"Was Éponine…." He tried, "I mean, did she…"

"She did it all. Monsieur it's late and tomorrow is going to be a long day, I recommend you to stay and sleep in this room. See you tomorrow," she said closing the door behind her.

Enjolras was left so worried it hurt his chest and he couldn't sleep throughout the night, he just paced around the room and tried to think were would Éponine be at the moment and worried about her safety.

* * *

**So...this is it! What do you think about it? I couldn't let Enjolras die...let's see about Éponine :/ I hope you like it...I'm going to continue soon! :) **

**-Cami **


	19. Chapter 19

_Enjolras woke up early in the morning. The sun wasn't out yet and the window was slightly open so the room was very cold. He snuggled against Éponine's blankets and breathed in her intoxicating scent, blushing suddenly because he remembered he had fallen asleep in her bed without her consent._

_He scanned the room without moving his face from the soft and comfortably cold pillows and smiled with satisfaction. Everything in the room was neat and pleasant to his eyes._

_Suddenly, he turned his gazed towards the other side of Éponine's oversized bed to find a disconcerting image: a feminine figure was curled in a ball on the other side of the bed but close enough to him to think they had recently been huddled together. Her brown hair fell all over her back and she breathed unevenly. She sighed peacefully while calling him in her sleep and turning around to face him._

_It didn't take him five seconds to recognize Éponine and he didn't know whether to feel ashamed or impressed. He didn't remember anything, not even falling asleep, nothing at all. Maybe, he thought, she arrived home late and was so tired she didn't recognize somebody else was sleeping in her bed._

_He looked at her for a while, until she opened her eyes and smiled at him with an air of familiarity that made him doubt of his hypothesis. Maybe she knew he was sleeping…maybe he received her with his arms wide open for her, maybe they even spoke into each other's ears words of love before falling asleep._

_Sunlight made its way through the curtains and Éponine's curled figure was slightly covered by Enjolras' shadow. He crawled towards her, desire guiding his every thought and move. Their faces were a few centimeters apart and soon, driven by impulse, Enjolras pulled Éponine's body close to his, bringing her back with him as he lay in the bed. She was lying on top of him and he explored the soft skin of her arms and neck impetuously with his lips._

_She giggled and kissed him softly on his lips, stopping him from the purposes that bubbled in him. Enjolras wasn't being himself, but with her it felt right._

_"Take it slow, my betrothed, we have our whole lives to share these moments," Éponine said with the coolest of smiles while she sat up on his stomach._

_Enjolras looked at her pleased while thinking about what she had called him. He put his hands behind his head and smiled at her, completely in love. The room was suddenly filled with an intense stream of light that colored their intentions in a range of pinkish orange. She smiled at him mischievously, never flinching. He lost the total control of himself as she kissed him deeply while biting his lower lip._

_He moaned uncontrollably in her face and she giggled in a very seductive and high-pitched voice._

"Hey Enjolras! Wake up! What's happening to you?" Marius asked in a hushed voice.

Enjolras opened his eyes immediately to find himself in a moving carriage along with Joly, Bahorel, Grantaire, Courfeyrac and Marius. Apart from Marius, who had his hands on Enjolras' shoulders, everyone else was sleeping.

With his eyes, he scanned the small place he was sharing with his five friends and reality pressed his chest with such an intensity he had to breath deeply a few times. He was getting dizzy and he tried to push aside the little velvet curtain that covered the window to breath some fresh air.

"Are you crazy?" Marius asked.

"What?" Enjolras asked as a response.

"Idiot! The carriage's supposed to be full of Madame Lafévres luggage for her "spiritual retirement" at that convent in the mountains," Marius recited what they told him before leaving.

Enjolras put his hands on his temples to try and figure out everything. He remembered that entire dream but he couldn't remember how he got there. He felt pathetic. Soon everything came back to his mind and he wished it hadn't because it made him nervous.

He remembered Madame Lafévre woke him up with a smile that didn't reach her green eyes, which depicted profound preoccupation. He didn't have to think too hard to realize Éponine didn't arrive at night and that everyone at home was going crazy.

He changed himself with some clothing 'Crecia brought to him and by the time he went for breakfast with the rest of Les Amis, he was trembling because of fear. He was quiet while everyone else was chatting and his head was plagued with all sorts of possibilities on what could've happened to Éponine.

Back in Paris, Gavroche and Cosette were extremely upset because they would have to stay. They were also very worried because they were the only ones who knew why Éponine wasn't at home and they feared she had been killed. Monsieur Lafévre sent a group of people to search for his daughter and was determined to stay in Paris until she arrived but his wife convinced him to leave for their own safety and they were soon being driven away in two very simple carriages in direction of the distant mountains where Monseigneur Bishop Myriel had his home inside a convent.

Once again, Enjolras felt like crying when he remembered that maybe Éponine wasn't at home yet. He thought the possibilities and all of them guided him to a negative answer. He pictured her body being pushed aside in the street by a very brutal member of the National Guard. He imagined her dying slowly on a very cold alley or maybe taken as a "war prisoner" to La Bastille to be tortured. He asked himself why he hadn't recognized her before at the street and taken her with him but didn't seem to find a satisfactory response other than pure cowardice.

"Everything's going to be fine Enjolras," Marius said while putting a hand on Enjolras' shoulder.

"You say so because you know when you go back to Paris you'll find Cosette waiting for you," Enjolras answered.

"No, I say so because I know 'Ponine's a strong girl…just think how she saved us from death. Do you think she isn't smart enough to survive all that madness?" Marius asked.

"Not even intelligence can stop violence, Marius, when violence is the language of the powerful and corrupt,"

"I think you should _properly_ rest Enjolras. By the way I promise not to say anything about you moaning Éponine's name in your sleep," Marius teased and then closed his eyes.

Enjolras thought for a while. He guessed it was almost night and calculated that they wouldn't arrive very soon, probably about seven or eight more travelling hours. He figured out that if he stayed up all alone, prey of his merciless thoughts and doubts, the trip would become eternal and tortuous so he closed his eyes once again and concentrated in thinking about something different than Éponine or the barricade.

In Paris, Éponine, who hadn't sleep since the night before the barricade, walked slowly and tiredly through the streets, hiding herself from the National Guard, who seemed to be everywhere now.

She was fatigued and alarmed by everything she had seen in those few hours but didn't allow herself any rest. Éponine was searching for Javert after getting as many people as she could away from the square and making sure that what they had done impacted as few people as possible.

The masses were stirring up, tired of the National Guard and the King. After all, the barricade had served for something and the cause wasn't completely useless. Éponine thought about Jean Prouvaire and Feuilly and crossed herself while remembering their deaths weren't in vain.

She finally sat in the shadows of an alley because her feet were too tired to take another step and her head hurt from the lack of rest. She heard footsteps coming and going and she closed her eyes. Éponine was too tired to fear anymore.

As soon as her body craved for something to eat, Éponine remembered the times before she arrived with Gavroche to the Lafévre home. Once again she felt helpless but appreciated the fact that her brother wasn't by her side and he was actually safe and comfortable at home.

At that point of the day, Éponine found comfortable the support that the dirty wall from the alley gave to her body. She started daydreaming and remembering events that seemed old memories. Her last kiss with Enjolras at the barricade, what he said to her before she left, the beautiful note he wrote to her the day General Lamarque died. She also allowed herself to fantasize a little with what might happen afterwards with their relationship but she couldn't figure out whether she would have to tell him everything she felt or if he had already figured it all out with everything that had happened between them.

"You're thinking about that boy right? The one I saw at the gardens that day," Madame Thénardier said smiling at her. She was sitting down besides Éponine, who was both scared and surprised with her sudden arrival.

"What are you doing here?" She answered.

"That's the same I ask you," Madame Thénardier answered while scanning the girl's appearance.

Éponine smiled as the last sunrays of the day met her face. She remembered that somewhere in the road to the mountains Enjolras, Monsieur Lafévre and her friends were all safe and she had helped to achieve that particular thing.

She stood up and so did Madame Thénardier.

"It's not safe for you to be here, you should go home," Éponine suggested and Mme. Thénardier laughed.

"Do you actually believe I have a home?" she simply answered.

"Where do you spend your nights then?" Éponine asked curiously.

"Everywhere," she answered, making Éponine feel ashamed.

"Where's Thénardier?" Éponine asked.

"I don't know, probably drunk…you know," she answered rolling her eyes like she had done so many times before.

"Why are you here?" Éponine asked once again.

"I know what you did at the square," she answered in a whisper and Éponine told her to hush immediately.

"They're searching for you. You were smart with that disguise," she continued, "but you must change it again or else they're going to find you soon. Let's change clothing, you inherited my hips and my short height."

"You want to help me?" Éponine asked and checked the alley to see if there was any trap.

"Not at all," Madame Thénardier said while unbuttoning her shirt.

"Right here?" Éponine asked candidly.

"You're being too modest to be the same girl that organized all this chaos," Madame Thénardier said with an ironical laugh.

In that lonely alley, Madame Thénardier and Éponine changed their clothing. Éponine hugged Madame Thénardier for the first time in eight years and, although it didn't feel pleasant or comfortable for her, she found a certain warmth she didn't remember in that woman.

"This is the last time we're going to see each other since I'm moving back to Montfermeil," Madame Thénardier told her and Éponine sought for an answer with her eyes.

"How are you going to get to Montfermeil? Do you even have money?" Éponine asked.

"I don't, but I decided I'll go back and search for something better," she answered with a smile before turning to leave.

Éponine stood there completely confused because of what had happened. This was the second time in eight years that she saw her mother and she had helped her. Éponine didn't regret hugging her but felt awkward because she didn't feel nostalgic or sad knowing she wasn't going to see her again. She simply felt gratitude because she had helped her.

What drove her away from her thoughts was someone tapping her back. She turned around to find Javert, his face completely white like snow and his eyes sparkly. He wanted to cry and Éponine once again felt really awkward. Why would Javert search for her to cry by her side?

"Mademoiselle _nièce_, would you like to accompany me to a certain place today?" Javert asked and Éponine looked at him very confused.

"We should hide Monsieur…_oncle_?" she said completely confused.

"There's nothing a pair of criminals can hide from the law," he said and took her by the hand through the alleys, ignoring Éponine's stares and questions.

It was getting darker when Éponine decided to tighten her grip on Javert's arm and stop asking questions he wasn't going to answer. He walked steadily and Éponine knew he was thinking hard as they walked. Éponine just hoped that Javert wasn't plotting something against her.

"We're not criminals," she said after a while.

He looked at her and smiled softly while petting her head like if she was a little child.

"You know nothing, child," he said more to himself than to her, "nothing about your parents and nothing about me."

Éponine didn't answer and he started talking again as they approached a bridge over the Seine.

"When I was sixteen and Jacques was fourteen our parents took us to the parks almost every day. They sat in a bench and we would run together and tease each other, sometimes even wrestle when we got into 'serious' disagreements. It was the golden part of our childhood and brotherhood," he said with a smile playing on the corner of his lips while Éponine looked at him.

"One day in which we were running like always, Cecile Lecorre appeared with her nana Lucrecia and her father in front of her. She was thirteen years old and the most beautiful creature I had ever seen in my entire life. Just imagine that coquettish blonde angel that seemed to levitate through the world instead of existing. I really wished I could possess the peace and joy she inspired. It was, and still is, one of my fondest memories," he said before pausing and checking if Éponine was paying attention.

"Apparently her father didn't want her at home, he resented her and decided that, since she was of a marriageable age, she would be a wife as soon as possible. I remember my father called me to his bureau that same afternoon and told me I was going to marry with Cecile as soon as I turned nineteen. I felt like the most fortunate man on earth,"

"So…what happened?" Éponine asked while trying to imagine her mother married to Javert.

"She fell in love with Jacques. I know her intention was not to hurt me and she actually cried the day she told me the truth. Cecile's a sensible person. She's worth every pain I suffered. My father decided to go ahead and promise her my brother's hand because he knew Jacques was also in love with Cecile and he thought that a loveless marriage was an abuse to that particular institution. I felt betrayed and left the house to join the local police. I didn't go to their wedding or ever talk to my parents again. As you might have already figured out, I changed my name. Both Jacques and Cecile think the reason was that when Jacques went to university he linked with revolutionary ideas…. but there are other reasons," he explained.

"Like what?"

"The fact that I felt betrayed by my family. I didn't speak with my parents again, not even when they died and I felt like a traitor. My father had secretly sponsored my career in the police. He was a benevolent man and yet I didn't even go to his funeral," he finished.

Then, Éponine noticed he was standing up on top of the railing of the bridge and looking towards the river as if he was tempted to jump. She looked at him in alarm but didn't dare to move or say anything to him.

"Éponine, I value honor and law over many things you know? That's why I swore that prisoner 24601 would pay. I cannot explain to you everything but I'll just tell you that he escaped…and I pursued him until now. He saved my life. I want you to go to him and ask him for my forgiveness. That's all," Javert said without looking at her, ready to jump.

"Monsieur! Don't jump! I don't even know who prisoner 24601 is!" Éponine exclaimed in alarm.

"He's got an adoptive daughter called Cosette. Also…please tell Cecile I loved her until the end and give Jacques my best wishes. It was nice having you as a niece for the last few hours," he said just before jumping from the railing and disappearing into the darkness of the Seine.

Éponine's knees started trembling and she couldn't believe what was going on. She closed her eyes, her body collapsing and her good sense abandoning her for a few moments as she stared at the place where Javert had been standing only moments before.

The two carriages finally stopped in front of the convent and they all descended to be greeted by Bishop Myriel's compassionate smile.

**I'm SORRY for being so late :( it took me FOREVER and EVER to write this chapter...I hope you really like it...I wanted them to be together so, since I couldn't alter the plot too much, I did a very fluffy moment in his sleep ;) Thanks for reading, commenting or putting in favorite/alerts...**

**With love,**

**-Cami**


	20. Chapter 20

After their first week out of Paris, the runaways had already settled down in the Lafévre property. Living together under the same roof turned out to be more chaotic than what everyone expected, especially since Les Amis always figured out how find some triviality that caused a commotion. As a result, the constant intervention of Les Messieurs before they killed one another was needed.

However, on their seventh day at their new and temporary residence, things seemed to have fallen into a routine everyone pretended to enjoy. During the day, they would try to search for an activity to help them forget the tedium of exile and at night most of them would drown their fears and memories in Monsieur Lafevrés' liquor stock.

It was a stressing day. Most of Les Amis were homesick and tired of not knowing what was going on back in Paris. Marius wanted to know about Cosette. They often found him talking shamelessly to his future father-in-law, although most of the times it ended up in him numbering the reasons to love the blonde girl. Valjean was growing tired of the boy but since he made his Cosette happy, he also found ways to be happy while listening to his babbling all day long.

"No offence…but is he always such…a…." Valjean tried to ask Enjolras.

"Such a romantic fool? Only when Cosette's the topic," he answered and continued with his book.

Enjolras was especially worried about Éponine. He hadn't heard of her whereabouts although Monsieur Lafévre had received a substantial amount of correspondence from his wife. He was afraid to ask but he felt he needed to do so because worry was gnawing at him. Enjolras couldn't sleep without visualizing her silhouette every once in a while, couldn't read or think because he often found himself lost, daydreaming about the _petit brunette, _and couldn't drink with his friends because alcohol made him have visions of his girl_. _

Enjolras finally understood that without Éponine by his side he couldn't function anymore. The fact that he hadn't told her this before tortured him frequently and not having her near to laugh, have a carefree conversation or simply to enjoy the pleasure of her company was deeply disturbing. He was also afraid that she might have encountered hazardous situations along the way. He was ashamed to think that she would risk her life to save them.

He realized one evening, while his friends played around through the forest beyond the house, that their current situation of exile was entirely his fault. If he hadn't convinced them to join his cause everything would've turned out different for all of them.

Marius would be at the Rue Plumet already planning his wedding with Cosette while Courfeyrac would be would be searching for the next girl that would bring warmth to his bed. Maybe Grantaire would have finally realized that the answers weren't in the bottom of every bottle containing liquor and he would've had the opportunity to redeem himself in an honorable way.

Bahorel would probably be debating somewhere else, showing off his ability to be serious while making everything amusing. Joly would've been the best doctor in the whole country and the most humanitarian one. Meanwhile, Combeferre would've probably published a book containing his philosophical views on politics for he was almost as compromised as Enjolras but he lacked a bit of determination.

Even Jehan and Feuilly, already resting in peace, would've had a chance. Jehan would continue dedicating verses to life and searching for its essence and Feuilly would've painted his revolutionary passion in everything his hands touched.

After spending time conjecturing what his friends' fate might otherwise have been, Enjolras couldn't look any of them in the eye, knowing he had destroyed their lives. That evening he called them all together and, with a brokenness they had never seen in him before, asked for their forgiveness.

The room was covered by a dreadful silence. Everyone was too consumed by their thoughts to even try to interrupt anyone with a meaningless conversation.

A sudden knock at the door brought them out of their reverie and to their feet. They looked at each other, unsure of what to do.

The person outside knocked again as nobody dared to open the door. On their few days there nobody had ever knocked at their door. The nearest town to the house was a three-hour ride by horse so the only face they had seen was that of the postman who appeared everyday with a letter to Madame Lafévre.

The unknown person was persistent and kept knocking on the door until Monsieur Lafévre decided to open to find Éponine outside. She was dressed in a dirty white shirt and ragged brown trousers. Her muddy boots and disheveled hair attested to her struggle to escape the chaos, and her tired face showed them how harsh had life treated her in the last few days. She entered without saying a word to her father, who gave her an understanding nod and closed the door.

She stood up in front of the group that simply stared with surprised looks on their faces. A tear rolled down her filthy cheek as she realized they were all safe from bullets, daggers and bad intentions.

Enjolras, dumbfounded, moved forwards to place his hands softly on her cheeks, wiping away tears and dirt to make sure she wasn't a product of his imagination again.

"You're here. You're here with me. Oh Éponine! I swear to God I'm never letting you go again. Not now and not ever," he said with tears also forming in his eyes as he filled her face with soft kisses and pulled her in a tight embrace that made her moan in pain. Enjolras opened his eyes widely to realize his hands were bloodied and her white sleeve was soaking wet with the red and vital liquid emanating from an apparent wound.

"It reopened," she said curtly while collapsing in Enjolras' arms. He kissed her again and again in a desperate fury as sobs broke his chest. Everyone looked in alarm, not knowing what to do until Joly tried to take the injured girl from Enjolras' arms but he wouldn't let her go.

"What happened? Éponine, what happened?" he asked and her eyes softly fluttered open revealing how much pain she was going through. Monsieur Lafévre finally took his daughter in his arms as Enjolras looked with horror. Everyone was running to Joly's orders and Éponine, who had been laid on the table, muttered something he couldn't hear.

Enjolras broke apart from the group and sat on the staircase, crying and watching Éponine from a distance. She looked at him and tried to dissimulate the pain from Joly's ministrations.

"I haven't been able to feel my arm since it occurred. It's been a few days. Joly stop! It hurts!" she insisted weakly with her eyes glued to Enjolras. Suddenly, her vision became blurry and it seemed she didn't even have the energy needed to talk. Éponine was tired and the last thing she remembered was Enjolras' pained expression before closing her eyes.

Joly shouted for bandages. Apparently Éponine had been wounded with something similar to a dagger and her wound was very deep. Enjolras could just picture Éponine being pursued by the National Guard and one of those damned bastards trying to kill her with his sword.

He saw his hands full of her blood and somehow he was reminded of the red flags that emerged the day of General Lamarque's funeral. That day red was the symbol of France's freedom; it was the blood of angry men, the color of justice. Today it meant something completely different and devastating. Red was the color of possible death, the color of a massacre, of a bloodbath, the color of lost innocence.

Enjolras covered his face with his stained hands as an unconscious Éponine in bloodied clothing and dead like appearance was taken to a room to rest.

"Enjolras she's alive. Don't you worry, she's a strong patient," Joly said while patting Enjolras' back.

"Your words don't reassure me at all Joly," Enjolras answered.

….

_Éponine had decided to leave Paris as soon as possible. She ran from the damned bridge and still she felt like it was not enough, she had to leave the city. Éponine was traumatized by the fact that she had seen Javert committing suicide without hesitation and her head was so crowded with thoughts that she couldn't reflect upon what he had told her before simply jumping. _

_She remembered walking aimlessly through the market. The rags Madame Thénardier gave her enabled her to blend in with most of the people without calling anyone's attention. In fact, to anyone who stared, she was simply a disturbed waif. _

_The National Guard arrived at the market to instill fear among the people. They started hitting whoever crossed their way, insulting, looting and disrespecting everything and everybody. People ran to hide and Éponine simply stood in disbelief, trembling with fear at the chaotic scene in front of her. _

_A man in blue uniform approached her and took her by the arm with a devilish smile on his face. Éponine was scared; his intentions were anything but good. She shouted as soon as he tried to drag her away to an alley in the name of King Napoleon III and the National Guard's sovereignty over the French people. He started calling her a whore and a strumpet before trying desperately to tear apart her clothing with his own hands. She remembered the despair in her pleadings for help when she realized nobody was even looking at her. _

_She spit in his face and slapped him really hard before kicking him in his groin and trying to run away but he wasn't surrendering so easily and he took out his dagger. His intention was to scare her but he ended up making a cut in her shoulder that made her faint immediately because of the pain. He ran away, leaving her in the market to die. _

_Éponine felt somebody carrying her but she had no energy to resist and simply let herself be carried away for nothing could be worse than dying alone in the market._

_She woke up in an unknown place surrounded by nothing but four bare walls. Her rags had been replaced with a white shirt and trousers. She tried to move but the pain was unbearable and she simply stayed in the bed, waiting for something to happen and trying to take her mind away from her injury. _

_An old woman, who later identified herself as Amelie, appeared with a couple of bandages and water. She smiled softly at Éponine and explained her brother, who happened to be walking by, had rescued her from what would've been a painful and slow death. He had also witnessed what that dishonorable man had tried to do to her and without even thinking about it he picked her up and took her home. Éponine smiled in response, thinking how much luck she had._

_She stayed two days in the house of her saviors. She spent all that time planning what to do next. _

_She imagined Gavroche and her mother, worried sick with her sudden disappearance but also guessed she couldn't show up at home or else they wouldn't let her leave to the mountains. She had to escape from Paris and the memories it brought to her and she definitely had to see Enjolras. _

_Pronouncing his name gave her the strength to get up and leave. Her saviors didn't complain at all and simply wished her good luck. Éponine made sure news of her reached her mother through a folded piece of paper she gave to Amelie and left the city by foot. _

_She spent days of hardship before arriving to the house in the mountains. She had to hide from the National Guard that deployed throughout the country; went days without eating that reminded her of the time with Gavroche when she was eleven. Occasionally she would stumble upon people in a carriage who were willing to take her to the next villages or some group of people to keep her company but in the end, she was on her own. _

When she arrived, Éponine was burning up with fever and the pain in her shoulder was unbearable but the greatest of pains was far from physical. She had seen Enjolras in a state of despair she hadn't seen in him before. He had been dubbed the marble man for crying out loud! How come she now found him in such a shocking weakness? She wanted to accompany him, to hug him tightly as he had done with her but couldn't find the strength to do so. She was filled with disappointment as her vision blurred and everything disappeared.

Among the many vague memories and blank faces she saw in her unconsciousness, Éponine could just distinguish a few of them. She remembered Javert, Madame Thénardier, Madame Lafévre, Gavroche and Monsieur Lafévre. She could've distinguished Grantaire in a crowd, but she wasn't too sure. She also saw Marius and Cosette. Then, Enjolras appeared and everything else became black fog to her. He turned his back with an irresistible smirk and wouldn't hear her calling his name at the top of her lungs.

"Enjolras! Enjolras!" Éponine said before opening her eyes. She couldn't avoid comparing it to being rescued from drowning. Her breathing was heavy and she felt disoriented. She realized Enjolras, her Enjolras, was holding her tightly and awkwardly trying to calm her down. Éponine laughed and hugged him back.

"How are you feeling?" Enjolras asked sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I'm fine," she simply answered while moving around and feeling an overpowering jolt of pain.

"JOLY!" Enjolras exclaimed and soon enough not only the alluded but everyone else stood in front of Éponine's bed.

Joly made everyone leave, Enjolras included, and with an ashamed gesture he asked her to take off her shirt. They both blushed in silence as he applied a smelly ointment in her wound. She bit her lip to suppress a smile as she considered the silly scene. As soon as he was finished, Joly offered her a naïve smile that invited Éponine to laugh out loud.

"Will I have a dramatic mark in my shoulder forever?" Éponine asked and Joly sat in the same spot in which Enjolras had been seated when she woke up. He took her hand and whispered to her.

"It'll be fine. Although it's quite a deep wound, it won't leave you a huge mark. Whoever helped you, they did it good. 'Ponine I was wondering if you would tell me what the hell happened to you? You know you can trust in me," Joly said.

"Wow, you're far a better at calming people than Enjolras," she answered with a mischievous smile.

"I'm a doctor, I won't get anywhere with no empathy. Now, listen to me 'Ponine. A dagger is not the same as a bullet. With a gun you can fire from a considerable distance but with a dagger, especially to cause such a deep wound, you need to be very close. I just want to make sure whoever did this didn't cause you any other…type of harm."

"Don't worry Joly, I'm alright," she said figuring out that it was better to forget what had happened.

"I need to speak to my father," she stated and Joly simply nodded before leaving the room and calling Monsieur Lafévre.

He came into the room and sat on the nearest chair with a serious expression and looked at his daughter straight in the eye.

"Papa…" she began.

"Listen to me," he said firmly, "It's one thing to contribute to a noble cause. But it's something else to create a suicidal mission to save us from the death penalty, cause a riot along with the local police, wear men's clothing, and risk your life for the family's pride."

"Papa…" she tried to speak but was confused because he had never spoken to her like this before. He continued to scrutinize her and to list everything she had done that might be considered wrong.

"And all of that, I must say, makes me immensely proud dear daughter," he concluded and she answered with a relieved smile.

"Oh papa! I missed you with all my heart," she said as she extended her healthy arm for him to hug her.

"I also did my dear 'Ponine. I wanted to stay and search for you. How did this happen to you?" He asked.

Éponine refrained from telling him the story. She decided she couldn't tell anybody about what had happened in the market but still didn't want to lie.

"The National Guard, they wanted to establish order with violence. Papa, that's unimportant, I must tell you something…regarding _Oncle Javert_," she said.

Monsieur Lafévre looked at her with both his eyes and mouth wide open. She smiled at him reassuringly and he nodded, wanting to listen attentively.

"Papa, Javert jumped from a bridge to the Seine a few days ago," she said and her gaze lowered to her hands, which moved mechanically. The silence that came afterwards was torturous for both of them and when she decided to spare a glance at her father, he was totally devastated. Before making a scene he didn't want his daughter to see, Monsieur Lafévre nodded and kissed her forehead.

"You've been a very strong girl, a very brave person," he said caressing desperately her cheek as a single bitter tear rolled down all the way to his chin, where it disappeared. Without adding anything else, he stood up and left. For their safety, he hadn't written to Paris but now it was important to do so.

Éponine was left alone for a while and she meditated. She remembered what Javert had said about Cosette's adoptive father and she simply couldn't help wondering whether she knew about it. Contrary to the doctor's orders, Éponine stood up. She felt dizzy to a point in which her eyes saw black spots all over the place but soon recovered and could leave the room.

Everyone was unpleasantly surprised when she walked to into the living room in search of Cosette's father. Grantaire, who was as sober as a man can be, walked to her and took her in his arms bridal style. Éponine teasingly complained as he twirled her around.

"I missed you so much 'Ponine," he said as he placed her in the sofa just by Enjolras' side. He took her hand and covertly caressed it with his fingers.

"I also missed you very much 'Taire. In fact, I missed all of you so much!" Éponine answered with a bright smile.

"We also missed you," Marius answered sweetly and she nodded.

"How are things back in Paris?" Combeferre asked.

"Oh 'Ferre. Well, after…the chaos of your failed execution it all went downhill. The National Guard opted for bellicosity and it seems they are all over the country now. They're searching for you," she answered politely before standing up. The political topic was left aside as everyone saw in fear how she could fall at any minute.

"I'm not convalescent!" Éponine hissed moving towards the hall.

"Hey Marius where's Cosette's father? I need to talk to him," she asked as if it were an afterthought.

"In the library," he answered and so she headed towards the last door of the hallway.

"Who are you?" Éponine asked when finding him alone in the library.

Valjean, who had his back to the door, turned around and smiled at the girl softly. He knew Éponine had helped Cosette and he owed her a lot. He stood up to introduce himself as Monsieur Wolstenholme, like he had introduced to everyone else but she didn't let him speak.

"Prisoner 24601, pursued by Inspector Javert for a considerable amount of time. Adopted Cosette and then saved said inspector's life. He committed suicide and commanded me to send you his message. He wanted you to forgive him," she shot immediately. Valjean collapsed on his chair and sighed.

"Don't tell anybody. My name is Jean Valjean and I was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread," he said while looking away.

* * *

**Hello! Thanks reading/reviewing/putting in alerts or favorites. I really appreciate it you guys. I'm sorry for being late with the chapter but inspiration was not by my side. Next chapter is going great and I already want to know if you'll like it! :) Hey, could I ask you a favor? please go into my webpage on Facebook (it's my new project were I post quotes and my random stories) please, give it a like if you consider it good. You're also invited to comment if you want to :) For some reason, the link's not working here but if you're interested just search on ****Facebook: Cami's Eternally Written Corner. **

**Thanks for your support! **

**With love, **

**Cami. **


	21. Chapter 21

"Don't tell anybody. My name is Jean Valjean and I was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread," he said while looking away.

Éponine sat on the floor in front of him and took his hand.

"I also have a past…a past in which my brother and I had to steal to survive. I won't judge you," her voice was thick and harsh because of the painful memories.

"If I hadn't done what I did, my sister and her children would've died," he whispered as an afterthought.

"Yet you did, you sacrificed yourself. If someone had accused us to the police, I imagine I wouldn't be here or Gavroche wouldn't be at home with mother." Éponine felt a lump in her throat.

Jean smiled at her with evident preoccupation before asking her not to tell Cosette.

"She's your friend…in fact you're her only friend and I don't want her knowing this until it's time,"

"Don't worry sir, my lips are sealed."

Suddenly, the door opened to reveal Enjolras, whose expression transformed to a worried glare when he saw Éponine seating on the floor. He ran up to her and, before she could protest, took her in his arms bridal style.

"Excuse me, Monsieur Wolstenholme, but Éponine shouldn't be sitting on the floor. See, she's injured," he said while cradling her in his arms.

"Enjolras I'm not a baby! And I'm fine. I might not be fully recovered…but I'm fine! Let me walk!" Enjolras raised an eyebrow in response and walked with her still in his arms to the door. Valjean looked at them from his sit and chuckled at the boy's protective behavior. Oh the amusement of watching a young boy in love!

Once outside the library, Enjolras walked with her to the doorway while looking into her big eyes. He was still cradling her and Éponine had stopped resisting so he pulled her close and pecked her lips softly. She closed her eyes and soon her arms were around his neck. The soft peck became a passionate kiss in which both of them wanted to capture each other's lips forever.

Enjolras smiled widely at her and finally letting her go of his arms, handed her a pair of boots. He smiled when she looked at him puzzled.

"It'll fit your attire much better than stilettos. Besides, you seem to be used to trousers and boots," he chuckled as Éponine inspected her clothing: brown trousers and a white shirt that belong to her father.

"Don't worry, Monsieur Lafévre told me that as soon as you're sufficiently recovered you're going to buy some _proper_ clothing. Now put your boots on, I want to walk with you my dear."

"Really? Do you think they're going to let me walk alone after what happened?" Éponine's voice was very confused but at the same time couldn't avoid showing hints of relieve; she didn't want to stay at home because she knew it would turn out to be a claustrophobic and hypochondriac environment of overprotection.

"I've got both Monsieur Lafévre and Joly's 'blessings' for you to come with me. Joly insists fresh air's good and your father knows I'm going to be by your side, so you won't be alone…and I can be worse than Joly," he smirked while taking her hand.

A few minutes later, they were walking through a little trail in the forest near the house. Éponine, who knew the place and its surroundings, was guiding him to a cottage in the middle of the forest that she would always explore with Gavroche. Enjolras wanted to tell her something he had been thinking since he talked to her mother in Paris.

"It…is a nice place don't you think?" Enjolras asked in a quivering voice.

"Yes, it is. When I'm old, I want to live in a place like this one with my husband," she said as her lips curved in a small, mischievous smile, which gave Enjolras an idea.

"So…I'm going to be forced to live outside Paris during my last years?" Enjolras smirked as her head snapped up; she clearly didn't expect such a confession.

"That's your way of asking for my hand in marriage?" Éponine asked with her eyebrows almost disappearing behind the strands of hair falling in her forehead.

"That's my way of telling you, my dear, that we're going to get married."

Éponine looked at him in awe and crossed her arms playfully while pretending to think hardly.

"What if I don't want to?" Enjolras' jaw dropped in response.

"I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don't want to marry me Éponine Lafévre." Éponine stuck her tongue out at Enjolras in response.

"I would do so, but I really want to."

Enjolras brought her to his chest and kissed her forehead.

"I guess your father will resent the fact that I didn't ask properly to court you," Enjolras said as a whisper.

"So what? He'll be happy that I've found a man that doesn't mind my temperament. He would always tell me I was growing up to be the most beautiful and less prissy spinster in all France," she shrugged and Enjolras openly laughed at her.

"I missed you so much, Éponine,"

"I missed you too, Enjolras."

Éponine dragged him through the trail until they found the cottage, which apparently served for romantic purposes on its days of glory. It was a small, graceful place, untouched by the nature around it. Its walls were painted of a faded blue and it seemed like the run-down doors and windows wouldn't last the night but Éponine entered confidently and Enjolras followed her, taking her hand.

Éponine sat on a dusty couch and patted her side as an invitation for him to sit. Enjolras, after acknowledging his lover's face of excitement, tried to understand what made it so especial to her. After a few silent minutes he found that the cottage was very cozy. He tried to imagine what it looked like when people lived in it and realized it could be the most peaceful place ever.

"I see why you like it," Enjolras said and Éponine didn't even move a muscle in response.

She contemplated the possibility of telling Enjolras about her past. He was, after all, planning to marry her and he deserved to know about her real origins. Éponine wondered for a while the possibility of Enjolras shunning her afterwards. She sighed and Enjolras sensed there was something she was trying to say, so he casted a few questioning glances in her direction.

"What's happening 'Ponine? Does your wound hurt?" Enjolras' words were marked by concern.

"It's fine, really. I just had something to tell you…regarding my life. It's important for me that you know this and I'll understand if you don't want to be with me afterwards."

Enjolras furrowed his brow in response but Éponine continued before he could say anything else.

"Do you remember…that woman, the gamine, we saw that day at the garden?"

"Yes, you left running that day, crying and frightened and then you told me she was part of your…past," Enjolras didn't say anything else as she lowered her gaze.

"Her name's Catherine Thénardier…and she's my real mother."

Their gazes met, Enjolras' expression was unreadable while Éponine's was ashamed. She continued talking.

"I was born in the village of Montfermeil. My parents, the Thénardiers, ran the local inn and, with my brother Gavroche and my sister Azelma, we were very happy. My parents were drunk almost always but I didn't mind at all, I had everything I wanted. Gavroche was too little, but Azelma and I were taught to be arrogant and selfish and every day we would just go around showing off with our fancy clothing and hats and dolls in a town in which most of the kids our age starved and didn't have a place to sleep."

A tear rolled down her cheek and Enjolras wiped it softly with his thumb.

"When I was about nine years old, my parents started losing every coin that they touched. They both loved alcohol and gambling and soon they didn't have anyone to help them with the inn. My siblings and I were forced to pickpocket every newcomer and to clean in exchange of not being beaten every day. Our fancy clothing and other luxuries were swapped for broomsticks and buckets and our meals became so little that we would often faint just because of hunger. We wouldn't go out anymore because people laughed at us. It was very hard, especially when Thénardier reached a point in which he was uncontrollable and unpredictable. Along with Madame Thénardier, they would send us to the woods to fetch water in the middle of the night, beat us because we fainted or because they considered we worked to slow…"

Enjolras couldn't believe what she was saying until Éponine's sobs brought him back to reality. He hugged her with pressing anxiety and need, urging her to hush and forget about the bad memories. She seemed so helpless that Enjolras could hardly recognize her as his Éponine but she continued nonetheless, which made him wonder for how long had she been saving all those memories inside.

"They would treat us like stray dogs. Whenever they remembered we needed food, they would throw us some hard bread but most of the times I would have to search for something to eat because Gavroche would cry of hunger and Azelma would always be sick. When I turned eleven, I got tired of the situation and proposed an escape plan to my siblings. Azelma refused and stayed, promising she would tell our parents if we escaped. Gavroche and I fled anyways and I can still remember that night in which they went out for us and they called me "stupid girl" and they called Gavroche a "brat". They didn't care about our wellbeing Enjolras, they simply wanted us to work for them."

Éponine tried to compose herself as she continued with her story.

"Before our arrival to Paris, we had to survive by pickpocketing and other ways of stealing and when we finally arrived, we were so fatigued we passed out on the garden of the Lafévres. The next morning, Madame Cecile Lafévre discovered us and took us inside to give us food and a good bed. They decided to adopt us and give us a better life."

"When we saw Madame Thénardier that day, it was the first time I saw her in years and that's why I was so bewildered and I ran away. That same day I learned they had lost the inn and that Thénardier was the alcoholic he always promised to be. God knows where Azelma is. Madame Thénardier helped me a few days ago; we changed our clothing so the National Guard wouldn't recognize me as the rioter of the square. I won't see her again though, she left to Montfermeil to restart her life."

Éponine sniffed as a signal that she was done with her speech and waited for Enjolras response, which was totally unexpected. He rested both of his hands on Éponine's cheeks and showered her with soft kisses along her jawline and lips. She put her hands on top of his and smiled warmly.

"Éponine…do you think I fell in love with you because of your last name? Do you think I love you because of where you come from? 'Ponine, you're special and that's why I'm here with you!" Enjolras kissed her again, this time in her neck and Éponine instantly got goosebumps and giggled but she couldn't avoid blurting out a question that bubbled in her head.

"Enjolras, you've fallen in love with me?"

Enjolras looked away as he felt his cheeks burning with a deep blush.

"I…love you Éponine. You're the bravest person I've ever met…and as I've already told you, the woman I want to share the rest of my life with. Maybe I can't offer you the certainty of a perfect life since I'm always going to fight for Patria but if I'm going to make this country better, I want you to be by my side."

He expected her to answer immediately, but she simply looked at him with a wide smile on her face.

"These are the moments in which I would love to take my piano everywhere," she said while standing up, "I've written a song for you…since the first day we met."

Then, her voice filled the small living room; she was singing.

_I, I can't get these memories out of my mind_

_And some kind of madness_

_Is starting to evolve. _

Enjolras was too surprised to move from his place, he was startled because nobody had ever written a song to him. He didn't know what he was supposed to do so he simply listened to her beautiful voice.

_And I, I tried so hard to let you go_

_But some kind of madness_

_Is swallowing me whole._

_I have finally seen the light_

_And I have finally realized_

_What you mean._

He stood up and hugged Éponine from behind and kissed her neck, which make her laugh. She continued anyways, Éponine was pouring her soul into the song.

_Now, I need to know is this real love_

_Or is it just madness_

_Keeping us afloat,_

_When I look back, at all the crazy fights we had_

_It's like some kind of madness_

_Was taking control._

_I have finally seen the light_

_And I have finally realized_

_I need your love_

_Come to me_

_Just in a dream_

_Come on and rescue me_

He recalled almost everything that had happened to them with the song, wondering whether if she would think about the lyrics while they were together. He smiled and kissed her again and again; she could be called his official addiction.

_Yes I know_

_I can't be wrong_

_And baby you're too headstrong_

_Our love is madness._

The last word was drowned with a kiss Enjolras gave her on her soft lips and she smiled.

"Does that answer your question, Monsieur?" Éponine said mockingly.

"Very much," he answered as they sat once again at the coach.

Éponine put a hand on his chest, just where the heart is located. They kissed once again, their longing being more and more evident this time. Soon, both Éponine and Enjolras found themselves doing something they didn't expect to do and they didn't realize it until it was too late…when his shirt was already touching the floor.

* * *

**Some might call me a cheesy girl, others a very cruel person. The truth is that I'm considering myself a romantic fool right now. Can you guess what's going to happen next? **

**Love, **

**Cami! **


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